age

/eɪd͡ʒ/

age noun: the amount of time that some being has been alive, or that some thing has been in existence, as measured from its birth or origin until the present or until some other given reference point. (Often measured in number of years; alternatively in months, days, hours, etc.; see also the usage notes).

Noun (1)

age (countable and uncountable, plural ages)

(countable) The amount of time that some being has been alive, or that some thing has been in existence, as measured from its birth or origin until the present or until some other given reference point. (Often measured in number of years; alternatively in months, days, hours, etc.; see also the usage notes)
- "What is the age of your oldest child?" — "He's ten." (ten years old)
- What were their ages at the time of their marriage?
(uncountable) The state of being old; the latter part of life.
- Feel awfully about Scott... It was a terrible thing for him to love youth so much that he jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood. The minute he felt youth going he was frightened again and thought there was nothing between youth and age.1936 Feb. 15, Ernest Hemingway, letter to Maxwell Perkins
- Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age, sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
Synonyms:

old age, dotage, senility, seniority, chair days, codgerhood, eld, elderliness, fogeydom, geezerdom

Antonyms:

youth
(countable) Any particular stage of life.
- the age of infancy
(countable) The time of life at which some particular power or capacity is understood to become vested.
- the age of consent; the age of discretion
(uncountable) Maturity; especially, the time of life at which one attains full personal rights and capacities.
- to come of age; she is now of age
Synonyms:

majority, adulthood
(countable) A particular period of time in history, as distinguished from others.
- the golden age of cinema; the first age of colonialism; a bygone age
- Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is also, I submit, the television age.1961 May 9, Newton Minow, Television and the Public Interest
Synonyms:

epoch, time, era, cycle, day, generation, Great Year, interval, period, Platonic year
1. The time or era in history when someone or something was alive or flourished.
  - the age of Pericles; the age of the dinosaurs
2. (countable) A great period in the history of the Earth.
  - The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age.
3. (countable) The shortest geochronologic unit, being a period of thousands to millions of years; a subdivision of an epoch (or sometimes a subepoch).
  - The Tithonian Age was the last in the Late Jurassic Epoch.
One of the twelve divisions of a Great Year, equal to roughly 2000 years and governed by one of the zodiacal signs; a Platonic month.
- Mr Lewis says we are living in the age of Aquarius, which means that the world is at present passing through the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the airy constellation.1911 April 10, The Evening News, Sydney, page 8, column 2
(countable) A period of one hundred years; a century.

Synonyms:

centennium
(countable, dated, possibly, uncommon) A generation.
- There are three ages living in her house.
(countable, excessive) A long time.
- It’s been an age since we last saw you.
Synonyms:

eternity, yonks, aeon, ages, blue moon, coon's age, crow's age, dog's age, donkey's years, eld
(countable) Lifespan, lifetime; the total time that some being is alive from birth to death (or some category of beings, on average).
- The age of man is three score years and ten.
- Thrice the age of a dog is that of a horse.
(countable) The entitlement of the player to the left of the dealer to pass the first round in betting, and then to come in last or stay out; also, the player holding this position; the eldest hand.

Verb

age (third-person singular simple present ages, present participle aging or ageing, simple past and past participle aged)

(intransitive) To grow aged; to become old or older; to show marks of age.
- He grew fat as he aged.
- I am aging; that is, I have a whitish, or rather a light-coloured, hair here and there. Sober thinking brings them1824, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations
1. (intransitive, usually, prediction) To suffer the passage of time so as to later be viewed or turn out in a certain way.
  - His prediction that we didn't stand a chance hasn't aged well, now that we've won the cup.
  - The sitcom was made in the 1970s and its casual sexism has not aged well.
(transitive) To cause to grow old; to impart the characteristics of age to.
- Grief ages us.
- To look at the hair by itself you'd say it was actually quite pretty, but on her head the gray sure ages her.1998 Fall, Mare Freed, “Aluhana”, in The Antioch Review, volume 56, number 4
1. (transitive) To allow to mature.
  - We age the whiskey for five years.
2. (transitive) To treat or tamper with in order to give a false appearance of age.
  - This clock is modern, but it has been deliberately aged in an attempt to make it seem antique.
(transitive) To determine the age of (the length of time that something has been alive or in existence).
- There are several ways to age trees.
(transitive) To indicate or reveal that (a person) has been alive for a certain period of time, especially a long one.
- I clearly remember hearing the news of Kennedy's assassination. That ages me.
- Mr. [David] Brinkley started out with network news. We got our news- I think it was the Huntley-Brinkley Report. I'm probably aging myself now, okay?1992 June 14, This Week with David Brinkley (television production), spoken by [James?] Carville, via ABC
(figuratively, transitive) To allow (something) to persist by postponing an action that would extinguish it, as a debt.
- Money's a little tight right now. Let's age our bills for a week or so.
(transitive) To categorize by age.
- One his first assignments was to age the accounts receivable.

Noun (2) capitalized: AGE

AGE (countable and uncountable, plural AGEs)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of advanced glycation end-product.
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of agarose gel electrophoresis.
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of allyl glycidyl ether.
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of arterial gas embolism.

age meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

age in Hindi

particular period of time in history: युग yug, अस्र asra, ज़माना zamānā
lifespan: आयु āyu, उमर umar, उम्र umra, वयस् vayas
amount of time since the birth of a being or the beginning of a thing: उमर umar, उम्र umra, आयु āyu, वयस् vayas, सिन sin
one of the stages of life: उमर umar, उम्र umra, आयु āyu, वयस् vayas, सिन sin

age in Tamil

one of the stages of life: வயசு vayacu

age in Urdu

particular period of time in history: زَمانَہ m دَور zamāna, عَصْر 'asr, زَمان zamān
lifespan: عُمْر 'umr
amount of time since the birth of a being or the beginning of a thing: عُمْر 'umr, آیُو āyū
one of the stages of life: عُمْر 'umr

age in Bengali

particular period of time in history: যুগ jug, জমানা jomana
lifespan: বয়স boẏoś, ওমর ōmor
amount of time since the birth of a being or the beginning of a thing: বয়স boẏoś
generation — see also generation: প্রজন্ম projonmo

More languagesFewer languages

age in Telugu: యుగం yugaṁ, వయసు vayasu, తరం taraṁ
age in Malayalam: കാലം kālaṁ, യുഗം yugaṁ, പ്രായം prāyaṁ, പ്രായം കൂട്ടുക prāyaṁ kūṭṭuka
age in Gujarati: ઉમર umar
age in Odia: ଯୁଗ juga, ବୟସ bayasa, ଆୟୁ āyu
age in Sanskrit: आयु āyu, वयस् vayas
age in Tagalog: kapanahunan, edad, anyos, henerasyon
age in Arabic: عَصْر ʕaṣr, زَمَان zamān, عُمْر ʕumr, عُمُر ʕumur
age in Malay: umur
age in Indonesian: zaman, usia, umur, abad
age in Thai: สมัย sà-mǎi, กาล gaan, ยุค yúk, อายุ aa-yú
age in Vietnamese: thời kì, thời kỳ, thời đại, tuổi
age in Myanmar: အသက် a.sak, အသက်အရွယ် a.sak-a.rwai

Examples of age in a sentence

We can determine the age of fossils using radiometric dating.
What is the present age of the earth?
I have a daughter your age, and I tell her when I was your age I was already working.
You should play with kids the same age as you.
At your age, your mom and I'd already found a job.
We both have kids under age four.

All 40 example sentences with age

Synonyms of age

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of age

Forms of age

Noun
plural	ages
plural	AGEs
Verb
third-person singular present	ages
present participle	aging
present participle	ageing
past participle	aged
past	aged

Past tense of age: aged

Plural of age: ages

Origin of age

From Middle English age, Old French aage, eage, edage, from an assumed Vulgar Latin *aetāticum, derived from Latin aetātem, itself derived from aevum (“lifetime”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“vital force”). Compare French âge. Displaced native Old English ieldu. The verb is from Middle English agen, from the noun. Originally found mostly as a participial adjective, probably an adjective in -ed, derived from the noun, reanalyzed to create a verb; perhaps modeled on such pairs as Latin senēscō (seneō; verb) / senex (adjective) and Middle French vieillir (verb) / vieil (adjective). Also compare Old French se aagier, eogier (“become of age”).

Words formed from age

Phrases with age

133 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with age

27 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about age

What does age mean?: Age means the amount of time that some being has been alive, or that some thing has been in existence, as measured from its birth or origin until the present or until some other given reference point. (Often measured in number of years; alternatively in months, days, hours, etc.; see also the usage notes).
What is age in Hindi?: Age in Hindi is युग (yug), अस्र (asra), ज़माना (zamānā). See Age meaning in Hindi.
How do you use age in a sentence?: We can determine the age of fossils using radiometric dating.
What part of speech is age?: Age can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce age?: Age is pronounced /eɪd͡ʒ/.
What is the plural of age?: The plural of age is ages.

Words near age in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: age (page history and authors); AGE (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-age.ogg.

Cite this entry: “age.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/age. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.