elderly

Pluralelderlies

1. 1
   adjective

   Old, having lived a relatively large number of years.

   Several elderly residents gathered in the lounge for the afternoon concert.

   Caring for an elderly parent can be both rewarding and exhausting.

   Similarold, elder

   Oppositeyoung, youthful

   Note

   Built from elder plus the suffix -ly, the word compares with more and most rather than -er and -est: more elderly, most elderly. That same elder still stands beside it as a near-synonym, along with plain old. Every other use of the word, for people as a group or for tired machines, grows from this one.

2. 2
   nouncollectivewith the

   Older people considered together as a single group.

   Government policy increasingly focuses on the needs of the elderly.

   Volunteers deliver hot meals to the elderly all across the county.

   Similaraged

   Oppositeyoung

   Note

   The adjective stands in for a whole population, and it always comes with the definite article, as in "health insurance and retirement income for the elderly." It is at home in the language of policy, services and planning. It names a group as a group: there is no a or an before it, and it never refers to people one by one.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of an object: old-fashioned or frail as a result of aging.

   The lab still runs on an elderly computer that struggles with modern software.

   An elderly tractor rusted quietly behind the barn.

   Similarold, dated, antiquated, archaic, obsolete

   Oppositenew, modern

   Note

   Machines borrow a word made for people here. Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons (1988) parks "an elderly gray-blue Dodge" at the back of a shop, and RAIL in 2025 calls a shunting locomotive dating from the 1950s elderly. In both cases the object still works. The word marks it as past its best and due for replacement, and the borrowing from the sense for people gives it a gently personifying tone.

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