Eild

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The advanced stage of life that comes with growing old, a term used in Scots and older English writing
2. The condition of being elderly, referring to the later years of a person's life in traditional Scottish usage
3. The period of advanced years, a somewhat archaic word for the state of having grown old

Etymology: "Eild" is a Scots and northern English word for old age, and its history is tied to "eld," which it shares a root with. Old English "eld" (also spelled "eeld" or "yld") meant age, old age, or the people of an earlier time, and it came from the same Germanic base as "old." In its earliest uses, the word described the simple passing of years rather than any particular condition of decline. Over the centuries, "eld" developed a sense of an entire age or era, and it was used for the ancient or bygone days that the older generation remembered. Northern dialects kept the form "eild" alive, where it became a word for the condition of being aged, so that a person in "eild" was simply grown old. The variant survived in Scots long after standard English had shifted to "old age" as its usual phrase.