senex

Noun

senex (plural senexes)

1. An older or old man, chiefly as a stock character.
   • 6. Old Men or Senexes. Frequently these characters have a beautiful young ward who, often, they wish to marry (or wish to marry off to someone the ward doesn’t like) and it is the task of the hero, the male lead, often helped by a shrewd servant or slave (or similar figure) to outwit the senex and...1997, Arthur Asa Berger, The Art of Comedy Writing, published 2017, →ISBN
   • Now for more about the four birds, explicitly identified with the four evangelists as the four old men or Senexes. Notice the repetition on four as the four Gospel books repeat much of the same history of Christ, perhaps as a result of an editorial effort to achieve uniformity.2013, John P. Anderson, Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah, volume 7, Universal Publishers, →ISBN, page 53