age
/eɪdʒ
/noun
1The length of time that a person has lived or a thing has existed: he died from a heart attack at the age of 51 he must be nearly 40 years of age...
- Enthusiastic young people between the ages of 12 and 18 are invited to apply for the classes which take place on a two hour basis on Saturdays.
- The club aims to provide entertainment for teenagers between the ages of 15 to 18 years in a fun and supervised environment.
- On Tuesday next all children between the ages of 6 and 9 are invited to come along and take part.
Synonyms
number of years, lifetime, duration, length of life;
stage of life, generation, age group, peer group;
years, summers, winters
1.1A particular stage in someone’s life: children of primary school age...
- Taking seven kids at different ages and stages to Disney World all at once!
- She has made many appearances on stage from a young age in local musicals - South Pacific and Annie.
- Four-fifths of primary school governor chairmen felt teenage pregnancy should start to be discussed at primary ages, although only three out of ten schools covered the topic at that stage.
1.2 [mass noun] The state of being old: fine wine improves with age...
- Give him his due though, his voice improves with age and Young is possibly one of the country's finest soul singers of the classic mould.
- But he has always had depth, and like the wine in his cellar he improves with age.
- The best of the chateaux make outstanding wines that improve with age, in taste and often in value.
Synonyms
elderliness, old age, oldness, seniority, maturity, dotage, senility;
one's advancing/advanced years, one's declining years, the winter/autumn of one's life
formal senescence
archaic eld
rare caducity
2A distinct period of history: an age of technological growth...
- Human history can be divided into two distinct ages - the geocentric and the heliocentric.
- We face the Brown era in fiction and a dark age for popular history.
- So what we see is not a story of the past, but today's stories set against the previous age or period.
Synonyms
era, epoch, period, time, aeon, span
2.1 Geology A division of time that is a subdivision of an epoch, corresponding to a stage in chronostratigraphy.However, there seems to be a marked age gap between the Cretaceous ages and onset of rifting in the Eocene....
- It happened 252 million years ago, at the boundary of the Permian and Triassic geological ages.
- However, a range of volcanic ages from Lower Cambrian to Early Devonian is suggested on biostratrigraphic grounds.
2.2 (ages/an age) British informal A very long time: I haven’t seen her for ages...
- Some of the stage crew at Stratford who've been there for ages have said how my voice is just like my father's.
- You wait ages for a television drama about what it's like to be fortysomething - wait until you're halfway through your 40s, in fact - and then four come along at once.
- The French Connection hasn't been on television for ages.
Synonyms
a long time, a lifetime, an eternity, seemingly forever;
hours, days, months, years, aeons, hours/days/months on end, ages and ages, a month of Sundays
British informal yonks, donkey's years
North American informal, dated a coon's age
verb (ages, ageing or US aging, aged) [no object]
1Grow old or older: the tiredness we feel as we age...
- Shanghai has seen its population ageing for the past two decades, with senior residents now accounting for over 18 per cent of its population.
- I think they've aged in a lot of ways, but I don't think their essential character has changed.
- Paramilitary bosses were ageing and their members grown rich on cross-border smuggling, robbery and money laundering.
1.1 [with object] Cause to appear old or older: he even tried ageing the painting with a spoonful of coffee...
- She's a young woman and I didn't want to get her something that would age her, so I went with the single pearl.
- I wished that I had aged the paper first by soaking in tea, as I usually do.
- Movie magic had aged the paint and metal to make it look antique.
1.2(With reference to an alcoholic drink, cheese, etc.) mature or allow to mature: [no object]: the wine ages in open vats or casks [with object]: a cheese that has been aged for four months...
- While this may sound rather unpleasant, it is the tannin which provides the structure of red wines and allows them to age and mature.
- The culturing process continues as the mild cheddar is allowed to age for about two months.
- We bought six bottles then and they have been aging nicely and drinking excellently now.
Synonyms
mature, ripen, mellow, become/make mellow, season, condition, soften, sweeten, grow up, come of age;
grow/become/make old, weather, (cause to) decline, wither, fade
1.3 [with object] Determine how old (something) is: we didn’t have a clue how to age these animals...
- Cubs were aged when they were first seen, when their age could be estimated to within an accuracy of 1 month.
- Timed embryos were aged more specifically by morphology.
- All captured birds were aged (young of the year or adult), sexed, and marked.
Phrases
act (or be) one's age
come of age
of an age
through the ages
Origin
Middle English: from Old French, based on Latin aetas, aetat-, from aevum 'age, era'.
Rhymes
- keep an account of
- keep an eye on
- keep an eye out (or open)
- keep a (or the) lid on
- keep a tight rein on
- keep at (or keep someone at)
- keep away (or keep someone away)
- keep a weather eye on
- keep back (or keep someone/thing back)
- keep body and soul together
- keep cave
- keep company with
- keep count (or a count)
- keep down
- keeper
- keepership
- keep-fit
- keep from (or keep someone from)
- keep goal
- keep going
- keep good (or bad) time
- keep house
- keeping
- keeping place
- keep in with