n. The length of time during which a being or thing has existed; length of life or existence to the time spoken of; period or stage of life in the history of an individual existence, animate or inanimate: as, his age is twenty years; he died at the age of eighty; at your age you should know better; a tree or a building of unknown age; to live to a great age; old age.n. Duration of existence, specifically or generally; the lifetime of an individual, or of the individuals of a class or species on an average: as, the age of the horse is from twenty-five to thirty years.n. A period of human life usually marked by a certain stage of physical or mental development; especially, a degree of development, approximately or presumptively measured by years from birth, which involves responsibility to law and capacity to act with legal effect: as, the age of discretion or of maturity (the former technically occurring some years prior to the latter, about the age of fourteen).n. The particular period of life at which one becomes naturally or conventionally qualified or disqualified for anything: as, at 46 a man is over age and cannot be enlisted; under age for the presidency; canonical age (which see, below).n. Specifically, old age (see 1); the latter part of life or of long-continued existence; the lapse of time, especially as affecting a person's physical or mental powers; the state of being old; oldness.n. An aged person, or old people collectively.n. One of the periods or stages of development into which human life may be divided; time of life: as, life is divided into four ages, infancy, youth, manhood or womanhood, and old age.n. A particular period of history, as distinguished from others; a historical epoch: as, the golden age; the age of heroes; the age of Pericles; the dramatists of the Elizabethan age. See ages in mythology and history, below.n. In geology, a great period of the history of the earth, characterized by the development of some particular phase of organic life or of physical condition: as, the age of reptiles; the age of ice.n. The people who live at a particular period; hence, a generation or a succession of generations: as, ages yet unborn.n. n. A century; the period of one hundred years, as in the phrases dark ages, middle ages, etc.n. A great length of time; a protracted period: as, I have not seen you for an age.n. In poker, the eldest hand, or the first player to the left of the dealer who bets.n. The dark ages, a period of European history, beginning with or shortly before the fall of the Roman Empire of the West (a. d. 476), marked by a general decline of learning and civilization. It was introduced by the great influx of barbarians into western Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries known as the wandering of the nations, and is reckoned by Hallam as extending to the eleventh century, when a general revival of wealth, manners, taste, and learning began, and by others to the time of Dante in the thirteenth century, or later. The middle ages, a period of about a thousand years, between the close of what is technically considered ancient history and the first definite movements in Europe of the distinctively modern spirit of freedom and enterprise. Its beginning is synchronous with that of the dark ages, and it is variously reckoned as extending to the fall of Constantinople (1453), the invention of printing, the Renaissance, or the discovery of America, in the fifteenth century, or to the Reformation, in the early part of the sixteenth. The feudal ages, a portion of the middle ages, marked by the prevalence of feudal institutions and of the spirit of chivalry, extending from their nearly universal establishment in the tenth century to their decline in the sixteenth.n. In Anglican churches, the age at which a man may be ordained to any one of the three grades of the ministry.To grow old; assume the appearance of old age: as, he ages rapidly.To make old; cause to grow or to seem old; produce the effect of age upon; bring to maturity or to a state fit for use; give the character of age or ripeness to: as, to age wine, clay, etc.A noun suffix of French, ultimately of Latin origin.To expose (mordanted or dyed cloth) to the air in order to fix the mordant or dye in insoluble form.n. The fat obtained from the Coccus axin of Mexico. Also called axin.
