old-man
old-man is the alternative spelling of old man.
Adjective
old-man (not comparable)
- (applied to plants and animals) Of exceptional size or age.
- Along the banks of the Georgina are alternate patches of old-man scrub and strips of plain country.1934, Henry G. Lamond, An Aviary On The Plains, page 209
- Davey suddenly jumped from his horse and ran after a big old-man bungarra. The goanna had arms like a bear.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 14
- (applied to weather) Of exceptional intensity.
- They Say: That the wild ducks have tipped an "old man flood."1900 July 8, The Sunday Times, Sydney, page 1, column 1
Meaning of old man
Noun
old man (countable and uncountable, plural old men)
- An elderly man.
- One's father.
- He smacked me around some. Didn't everybody's old man?
- Antonyms:
- old lady
- A husband, or male significant other, irrespective of age.
- “[…] Now if that thing is balling—and your old lady or your old man is off somewhere flashing and doesn't want to be touched—well, you get put down on acid, you can be on a bummer for months.”1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- One's male employer, irrespective of age.
- A unit's commanding officer, or the commander of a naval vessel, irrespective of age.
- An Australian Aboriginal elder.
- Big Paddy nursed his grief in a quiet, mad fury. Then he urged the Old Men to ‘sing out’ those responsible for the death of his son.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 26
Forms of old-man
| plural | old-men |
|---|
Questions about old-man
- What does old-man mean?
- Old-man means (applied to plants and animals) Of exceptional size or age.
- What is old-man the alternative spelling of?
- Old-man is the alternative spelling of old man.
- What part of speech is old-man?
- Old-man is an adjective.
Words near old-man in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: old-man (page history and authors); old man (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:
Cite this entry: “old-man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old-man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.