Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Being past middle age and approaching old age; rather old.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or characteristic of older persons or life in later years.
  • noun An elderly person.
  • noun Older people considered as a group. Often used with the:

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Somewhat old; advanced beyond middle age; bordering on old age: as, elderly people.
  • Synonyms Old, etc. See aged.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Somewhat old; advanced beyond middle age; bordering on old age.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective old; having lived for relatively many years
  • noun an elderly person
  • noun older people as a whole

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective advanced in years; (`aged' is pronounced as two syllables)
  • noun people who are old collectively

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

elder +‎ -ly

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