a. dial.; also aud. [mod. Sc. and north Eng. descendant of OE. ald, which became in midl. dial. in 13th c. OLD.] = OLD; as in auld lang-syne, ‘old long-since,’ old long-ago (used subst.); Auld Reekie, ‘Old Smoky,’ a sobriquet of Edinburgh; auldfarrand, ‘favouring,’ i.e., resembling the old or adult, having the manners or sagacity of age; auld-warld, old-world.
[950–. see ALD.]
1375. Barbour, Bruce, I. 17. Aulde storys that men redys.
1702. Thoresby, Diary, I. 352. Saw … a child of three years old fill its pipe of tobacco, and smoke it as audfarandly as a man of three score!
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xl. My best service to all my friends at and about Auld Reekie!
1848. Kingsley, Alt. Locke (1881), I. 91. Foolish auld-warld notions about keeping days holy.
