Genarians

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who are in a specific age group, typically denoting those who are a century old or older
2. People who have reached the milestone of turning one hundred, often highlighting their experiences and longevity in life
3. Persons aged one hundred years or more, emphasizing their survival through an extended period of time

Etymology: "Genarians" is the plural of "genarian," a word for someone who has reached one hundred years of age. It was formed by back-formation, working backward from a set of older words. "Sexagenarian" (a person in their sixties) and "septuagenarian" (a person in their seventies) came first, built on Latin "sexagenarius" and "septuagenarius," and the pattern they share, a number plus "-genarian," invited a new member for the hundreds. Speakers essentially sliced off the recognisable ending of the existing series and treated what remained as a fresh building block. The core of the word is the Latin "genus," meaning "birth" or "generation," which in this context stands for a span of years, the decade-long count of a life. The suffix "-arian" comes from Latin "-arius," used to form words for people associated with something, and English has used it for centuries in words like "librarian" and "unitarian." Put together, the word means a person of a given stretch of years, here a century.

Synonyms: octogenarians, nonagenarians, septuagenarians, centenarians, age groups