a. Now rare. [f. L. longæv-us, f. long-us LONG a. + æv-um age.] Long-lived; living or having lived to a great age.
1680. Aubrey, Lett., in Lives (1813), II. 198. I come of a longævous race.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor., III. § 1. The … Element of Water … so shut up the first Windows of Time, leaving no Histories of those longevous generations.
1699. Evelyn, Acetaria, 138. The longævous Elephant.
1701. Grew, Cosmol. Sacra, IV. viii. 263. Cedar wood … is longevous, and an Evergreen.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 391. The longevous antediluvian.
1860. Reade, Cloister & H., IV. 432. Eli and Catherine lived to a great age…. Giles also was longævous.
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 198. He begins to feel dignified and longævous like a tree.
