middle-aged
See also: middleaged
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
middle-aged (comparative more middle-aged, superlative most middle-aged)
- (not comparable) Of or relating to middle age; neither old nor young.
- 1676, Rigaud, quoting Collins, Corr. Sci. Men, volume II, published 1841, page 453:
- The admirable M. Leibnitz, a German, but a member of the Royal Society, scarce yet middle aged.
- 1709, Steele, Tatler, № 77, ¶ 2:
- When I was a middle-aged Man.
- 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol:
- If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance — literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.
- 1880, G. Meredith, Tragic Com., published 1881, page 81:
- A middle-aged, grave and honourable man.
- (comparable) Characteristic of middle-aged people.
- 1886, Lowell, Gray, in Latest Lit. Ess., published 1891, page 2:
- Cowper was really mad at intervals, but his poetry, admirable as it is in its own middle-aged way, is in need of anything rather than a strait-waistcoat.
- 1887, Ruskin, Præterita, volume II, page 269:
- His already almost middle-aged aspect of serene sagacity.
- (obsolete, not comparable) Belonging to the Middle Ages; medieval.
- 1710, Hearne, Collect. (O.H.S.), volume III, page 49:
- The reading and perusing of middle-ag’d Antiquities.
- 1804, Mitford, Inquiry, page 318:
- Of the modern and middle-aged Greek.
- 1845, Proc. Philol. Soc., volume II, page 145:
- The English hunger bears a strong resemblance to the Spanish hambre, formed from the middle-aged Latin famina.
Translations edit
of or relating to middle age
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characteristic of middle-aged people
belonging to the Middle Ages — see medieval
Further reading edit
- James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Middle-aged, a.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes VI, Part 2 (M–N), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 421, column 2.