eld

alternative elth · alternative Scotland eild · alternative Scotland eeld · alternative Scotland ild · alternative Scotland yeeld

1. dialectalrareuncountableOne's age, age in years, period of life.

   Promptly appeared a paragon, aged twenty-five or thereabouts, and exhibiting all the steadiness and serenity of advanced eld.

   1913, Paulist Fathers, Catholic World

   2 more examples

   A forlyued cok leiþ eiren in his laste elde... and ȝif any venemous worme sittiþ on broode þerevppon in þe canyculer dayes, þerof is igendrid... a cocatrice.

   a. 1398, John Trevisa, transl. Bartholomeus Anglicus as De Proprietatibus Rerum (MS BL Add. 27944), Vol. I, p. 628

   The experience of many years gave old men peculiar qualification for various offices; and elders, or men of a ripe or advanced eld or age, were variously employed under the Mosaic law.

   1868, John Eadie, A Biblical Cyclopædia

2. archaicpoeticuncountableOld age, senility; an old person.

   The withered limbs of eld, the thin, gray hair […]

   1912, Herbert Van Allen Ferguson, Rhymes of Eld

   5 more examples

   Dotard, (ſaide he) let be thy deepe aduiſe; Seemes that through many yeares thy wits thee faile, And that weake eld hath left thee nothing wiſe, Els neuer ſhould thy iudgement be ſo frayle, To meaſure manhood by the ſword or mayle.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 223

   Taught he not thee—the man of eld, / Whose eyes within his eyes beheld / Heaven's numerous hierarchy span / The mystic gulf from God to man?

   1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Threnody”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 245

   As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress Of life's disastrous eld, on blossoming youth May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth […]

   1904, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sun's Shame, verse 2, lines 1–3

   Whithersoever she had fared, she had seen nothing but youths fatuously prostrate to her—not one upright figure which she could respect. There were the middle-aged men, the old men, who did not bow down to her; but from middle-age, as from eld, she had a sanguine aversion.

   1911, Max Beerbohm, chapter II, in Zuleika Dobson

   the alien wife / No crown of honour was as eld drew on.

   1912, Arthur S[anders], transl. Way, Medea, Heinemann, translation of Medea by Euripides, published 1946, page 329

   Synonyms: elderliness, age, chair days, codgerhood, elderliness, fogeydom, geezerdom, golden years

3. archaicpoeticuncountableTime; an age, an indefinitely long period of time.

   Synonyms: aeon, age, ages, blue moon, coon's age, crow's age, dog's age, donkey's years

4. archaicpoeticuncountableFormer ages, antiquity, olden times.

   The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crew glide to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries ...

   1833, Edgar Allan Poe, MS. Found in a Bottle

   1 more example

   Once adown the dewy way a youthful cavalier spurred with a maiden mounted behind him, swiftly passing out of sight, recalling to the imagination some romance of eld, when the damosel fled with her lover.

   1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 38

   Synonyms: days of yore, days of yore, foreday, foretide, foretime, old days, past, yestertide

comparative elder · superlative eldest · alternative elth · alternative Scotland eild · alternative Scotland eeld · alternative Scotland ild · alternative Scotland yeeld

1. obsoleteOld.

   Synonyms: aged, venerable

present singular third person elds · participle present elding · participle past elded · past elded · alternative elth · alternative Scotland eild · alternative Scotland eeld · alternative Scotland ild · alternative Scotland yeeld

1. archaicdialectalintransitivepoeticTo age, become or grow old.

   Synonyms: elden

2. archaicintransitivepoeticTo delay; linger.

   Synonyms: abide

3. archaicpoetictransitiveTo make old, age.

   Synonyms: mature