Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.
Class I. Words Expressing Abstract RelationsSection VI. Time
2. Time with reference to a particular Period
124. Oldness.
NOUN:OLDNESS &c. adj.; age, antiquity, eld [obs. or poetic]; cobwebs of antiquity.MATURITY, matureness, ripeness.
DECLINE, decay; senility [See Age].
SENIORITY, eldership, primogeniture.
ARCHAISM &c. (the past) [See Preterition]; thing of the past, relic of the past; megatherium; Babylonian, Assyrian, Sanskrit.
TRADITION, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law; folklore.
VERB:BE OLD &c. adj.; have had its day, have seen its day.
BECOME OLD &c. adj.; age, fade.
ADJECTIVE:OLD, ancient, olden [archaic], eldern [archaic], antique; of long standing, time-honored, venerable, hoary, vetust [obs.]; elder, eldest; firstborn.
PRIMITIVE, prime, primeval, primigenous, primigenial, primigenous; paleoanthropic; primordial, primordiate [rare]; aboriginal (beginning) [See Beginning]; diluvian, antediluvian, protohistoric, prehistoric, dateless, patriarchal, preadamite; palæocrystic; fossil, paleozoic, preglacial, antemundane; archaic, Vedic, classic, medieval, Pre-Raphaelite, ancestral; black-letter.
IMMEMORIAL, traditional, traditive, traditionary [rare], prescriptive, customary, unwritten, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary; inveterate, rooted.
ANTIQUATED, of other times, old as the hills, of the old school, after-age, obsolete; out-of-date, out-of-fashion; stale, old-fashioned, old-fangled [rare], fusty, outworn, moth-eaten [humorous], behind the age; old-world; exploded; gone out, gone by, passé [F.], extinct, dead, disused, past, run out; senile [See Age]; time-worn; crumbling (deteriorated) [See Deterioration]; secondhand.
old as the hills, old as Methuselah, old as Adam, old as history.
ADVERB:since the world was made, since the year one, since the days of Methuselah.
QUOTATIONS:
- Vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.—Tacitus
- How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world.—Hamlet