senectitude

English

Etymology

From Latin senectus (“aged, old age”), senex (“old”). Compare senescent.

Noun

senectitude (uncountable)

  1. old age
    Synonyms: agedness, elderliness, oldness; see also Thesaurus:old age
    • 1857, Hugh Miller, The Cruise of the Betsey, Or, a Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides:
      Three-and-twenty years form a large portion of the short life of man,—one-third as nearly as can be expressed in unbroken numbers, of the entire term fixed by the psalmist, and full one-half, if we strike off the twilight of childhood and immature youth, and of senectitude weary of its toils.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “senectitude”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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