elder

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I'm the taller Well, but I'm the elder, and the elder is always the man All right, but you have to help about the house.

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Definitions (57)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (8)

  1. adjective Greater than another in age or seniority.
  2. adjective Superior to another or others, as in rank.
  3. noun An older person.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (42)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

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Examples (50)

  • Mr. Penecuik the elder is the duke's sole heir, which means, in time, Jeremy will inherit the dukedom. —  Rose in Bloom
  • Hazel understood that she, the female, was meant to observe father and son: son and father: the elder Gallagher and the younger: meant to appreciate how the elder was the stronger of the two, in this matter of masculine will. —  The Gravedigger’s Daughter
  • For the elder was a sweet rogue, with hair like red gold clean out of the fire, and eyes like a blue June morning, and cheeks like May flowers that a rose has kissed, and lips that better than a rose would kneel to kiss one day; and her smile lit up the street, and she tripped along as light as a spring breeze. —  The Ladies
  • If to live in the world as if not of it indicates a saintly nature, then Robert Browning the elder was a saint: a serene, untroubled soul, conscious of no moral or theological problem to disturb his serenity, and as gentle as a gentle woman,—a man in whom, it seemed to me, no moral conflict could ever have arisen to cloud his frank acceptance of life as he found it come to him. —  The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I
  • Mr. Osbaldistone the elder was there also, and in another moment Frank was folded in his father's arms III. —  Red Cap Tales Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

illustrious ·  young ·  pastor ·  magistrate ·  eldest ·  elderly ·  venerable ·  senior ·  dear ·  unfortunate ·  deceased ·  minister

Used in the same contextWord Family

elder:   elders
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English eldre, from Old English eldra; see al-2 in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English eldre, from Old English ellærn.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English elder, eldere, eldre, elther, aldre, aldre, ældre, ealdre, from Anglo-Saxon yldra, eldra (= OFries. alder, elder = Old Saxon aldira = Old High German alter, Middle High German elter, German älter = Icelandic ellri, eldri = Danish ældre = Swedish äldre), comparative (with umlaut) of eald, old. The comparative older is modern, from old + -er: see old. Cf. elder, n.
  2. from (1) Middle English plural eldren, ældren, ælderen, aldren, ealdren, and (with double plural) eldrene, elderne, also (with plural of adjective in positive) eldre, eldere, also (properly plural of (2), below) elderes, eldres, elders, rarely olders, (a) parents, (b) ancestors; (2) Middle English rarely in singular eldere, ældere, ælder, alder, (c) a chief; the forms and senses being mixed in Middle English, but distinct in Anglo-Saxon: from Anglo-Saxon (1) yldran, eldran, ældran (Old Northumbrian aldro), (a) parents, (b) ancestors (rarely in singular yldra parent, father, = OFries. aldera, ieldera, alder, elder = Old Saxon aldiro, aldro, plural aldron, eldiron = German eltern, plural, parents, voreltern, ancestors, = Danish forældre = Swedish föräldrar, plural, parents), plural of yldra, etc., adjective comparative of eald, old: see elder, a.; (2) Anglo-Saxon ealdor, aldor, plural ealdras, aldras, (a) an elder, parent, (b) ancestor, also and more commonly (c) a chief, prince, from eald, old, + -or; orig. identical with the comparative adjective
  3. (1) from Middle English elder, eldre, eldyr (with excrescent d), eller, also ellerne, ellarne (whence modern dial. eller, eldern, ellern, ellen-tree), from Anglo-Saxon ellen, the usual form, but earlier ellaern (in a Kentish gloss) = Middle Low German elhorn, alhorn, alherne, etc., Low German elloorn, elder, the elder-tree. (2) Another form appears in English dial. hilder, from Middle English hilder, hiller, hillor, hillerne, helderne (generally, like the other Middle English forms, in connection with tree) = Dutch halder(-boom) (now vlier, vlier-boom) = Norwegian hyll, hylle-tre = Swedish hyll, hylle-trä = Danish hyld, hylde-træ, elder, elder-tree. (3) A third form appears in Old High German holantar, holuntar, Middle High German holander, holder, German holunder, hohlunder, holder, dial. holler. It is doubtful whether these three forms are ult. identical. Popular etymology has wrought confusion, e.g., in assimilating the forms with those of alder; cf. Middle English elder, modern dial. eller, Low German ellern, German eller, alder. The third form, Old High German holantar, etc., appears to consist of hol-, the root of the word, popularly supposed to be identical with hol, modern G. hohl, = Anglo-Saxon hol, hollow, + -an = Anglo-Saxon -en, inflexive or deriv. suffix, + -tar, Middle High German -der, prob. (as in Old High German mazzol-tra, Middle High German mazolter, German massholder = Anglo-Saxon mapul-dur, -dor, -dern, maple-tree) cognate with tree: cf. the Scandinavian forms with -tre, -trä, -træ. Some compare Russian kalina, elder.
 

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/ˈɛldər/
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