1. Of persons or of things quasi-personified: Somewhat old, verging towards old age. Also in comb., elderly-looking adj.
1611. Cotgr., Vieillot, elderlie, somewhat old.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 107. Let … twelve elderly men of free condition, together with the Sheriff be sworne.
1712. Budgell, Spect., No. 301, ¶ 1. Elderly Fops, and superannuated Coquets.
1773. Priestley, Inst. Relig. (1872), II. 353. The more elderly … members presided.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 341. The elderly inhabitants [of Leeds] could still remember the time when the first brick house … was built.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. vi. 529. An elderly man at the time of his marriage.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6), I. vi. 198. The ‘Urgent’ is an elderly ship.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., III. xxxv. 30. You had need hire men to … chip it all over artistically, to give it an elderly-looking surface.
2. Of or pertaining to one in later life.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 152–3. In our own elderly doings … we are set on work after higher scantlings of wisdom.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola (1880), I. Introd. 8. The Frate carried his doctrine rather too far for elderly ears. Ibid. (1866), F. Holt (1868), 19. No elderly face can be handsome, looked at in that way.
3. quasi-sb.
1865. N. & Q., Ser. III. VIII. 82. Fifty years ago a common exclamation among the elderlies was ‘my eye Kitty Fisher.’
Hence Elderliness. [see -NESS.]
1876. Miss Yonge, Womankind, xxxv. 322. The trials of elderliness have either been unfelt or safely weathered.
1883. W. M. Baker, Roll of Waves, in Chicago Advance, 27 Sept. A certain reserve and elderliness of manner.
