Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or belonging to time long past; old or ancient: olden days.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To grow old; age; assume an older appearance or character; become affected by age.
- To age; cause to appear old.
- Old; ancient.
Wiktionary
- adj. From or relating to a previous era.
- adj. Old; ancient.
- v. intransitive To grow old; age; assume an older appearance or character; become affected by age.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Old; ancient.
- v. rare To grow old; to age.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. long past
Etymologies
- From old + -en. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English : old, old; see old + -en, adj. suff.; see -en2. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“On the way back from swimming, I mentioned that - in olden times - sailors couldn't always swim, which took us to press gangs, and Nelson's navy.”
“It's funny how many men in olden times had feminine-sounding names.”
“Back in olden times, say the early 1990's, a time of linear media and a small clutch of manageable news outlets, candidates routinely pivoted right (in GOP primaries) and left (in Democratic primaries) knowing that for the general election they could slide towards the center to build the winning coalition of their own party faithful, plus independents and a sprinkling of disaffected voters from the other party.”
The Huffington Post: Fernando Espuelas: Meg Whitman's Big Fat Latino Problem
“Prayers were not more commonly answered, miracles were not more commonly performed in olden days.”
“I wonder if in olden times people wrote out the address on formal letters as “Washington, District of Columbia” We should consult with Miss Manners.”
“Trade boats in olden times generally stayed within view of the coastline, allowing them to know where they were more accurately.”
“Across the street was an elementary school; in olden times they were called “Grammar Schools.””
“Point One is that a lot of assumptions about How Women Were in olden days (which in America pretty much means before the hagiographic 50s) are simply not true.”
“We're as rich as some kings and queens were in olden times.”
“If PBS had done it, and they have with their series of live in "olden times" shows, maybe I'd consider it a social experiment, but not from CBS.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘olden’.
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Writing
immunity, reaching, ingenuity, divinity, affinity, kaleidoscopes, statistics, hope, pictures, linguistics, magenta, mist and 222 more...
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faded glory
days of yore, once upon a time, obsolete, passé, cliché, démodé, jaded, former glory, bygone, ruined, ancient, decrepit and 45 more...
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Words I dislike
preggers, hubby, wifey, funky, slurpie, moist, olden, arvo, kthnxbye, fierce, whiff, organza and 14 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for olden.
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