Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A paraphilia involving a usually nonconsenting elderly person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Love of, or (especially) sexual attraction toward, the elderly.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek γέρων (gerōn, "old man") +‎ -philia

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Examples

  • He said that a sexual fixation on elderly people - known as gerontophilia - is an unusual condition.

    unknown title 2009

  • I am currently reading a hilarious book that daringly dives head-first into the creepy mire of gerontophilia.

    Geezer Love Grosses Me Out 2009

  • I am currently reading a hilarious book that daringly dives head-first into the creepy mire of gerontophilia.

    Geezer Love Grosses Me Out 2009

  • Professor Fischer is here confusing patriarchy with gerontophilia.

    Growing Old: An Exchange Fischer, David Hackett 1977

  • They show greater equality and affection, which has nothing to do with any decline of gerontophilia.

    Growing Old: An Exchange Fischer, David Hackett 1977

  • Professor Stone accepts the fact that fashion shifted from an age-bias to a youth-bias in the period 1780-1820, but argues that more youthful clothes co-existed with a supposed spirit of gerontophilia in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

    Growing Old: An Exchange Fischer, David Hackett 1977

  • It would be a major understatement to say that scientific research on gerontophilia is scant compared to the study of other paraphilias, but scattered references do exist.

    Slate Magazine Jesse Bering 2011

  • His definition was brief and nonspecific, describing gerontophilia simply as "the love of persons of advanced age."

    Slate Magazine Jesse Bering 2011

  • Unlike pedophilia (peak attraction to prepubescent children), hebephilia (peak attraction to early pubescent-aged children) ephebophilia (peak attraction to adolescents) and teleiophilia (peak attraction to reproductive-aged adults), gerontophilia has not been explored systematically using sexological laboratory techniques- Jesse Bering is an evolutionary psychologist and director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast.

    Slate Magazine Jesse Bering 2011

  • Ball laments this continued obtuseness in defining how old is old, exactly, when it comes to certifiable gerontophilia.

    Slate Magazine Jesse Bering 2011

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