Etymology From Middle English elde, from Old English ieldu, eldo, ieldo (“age, period of time; period; time of life, years; mature or old age, eld; an age of the world, era, epoch”), from Proto-West Germanic *aldī, from Proto-Germanic *alþį̄ (“eld, age”), from *aldaz (“grown up, mature, old”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós, from *h₂el- (“to raise, feed”). Cognate with Scots eild (“age”), North Frisian jelde (“age”), German Älte (“age”), Danish ælde (“eld, age”), Icelandic elli (“eld, age”). Related also to Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌳𐍃 (alds, “generation, age”), Old English alan (“to grow up, nourish”). More at old.
1
Dialectal, Rare One's age, age in years, period of life.
A forlyued cok leiþ eiren in his laste elde... and ȝif any venemous worme sittiþ on broode þerevppon in þe canyculer dayes, þerof is igendrid... a cocatrice.a. 1398, John Trevisa, transl. Bartholomeus Anglicus as De Proprietatibus Rerum (MS BL Add. 27944), Vol. I, p. 628
The experience of many years gave old men peculiar qualification for various offices; and elders, or men of a ripe or advanced eld or age, were variously employed under the Mosaic law.1868, John Eadie, A Biblical Cyclopædia:
1 more example
Promptly appeared a paragon, aged twenty-five or thereabouts, and exhibiting all the steadiness and serenity of advanced eld.1913, Paulist Fathers, Catholic World:
Dotard, (ſaide he) let be thy deepe aduiſe; Seemes that through many yeares thy wits thee faile, And that weake eld hath left thee nothing wiſe, Els neuer ſhould thy iudgement be ſo frayle, To meaſure manhood by the ſword or mayle.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 223:
Taught he not thee—the man of eld, / Whose eyes within his eyes beheld / Heaven's numerous hierarchy span / The mystic gulf from God to man?1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Threnody”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 245:
4 more examples
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress Of life's disastrous eld, on blossoming youth May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth […]1904, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sun's Shame, verse 2, lines 1–3:
Whithersoever she had fared, she had seen nothing but youths fatuously prostrate to her—not one upright figure which she could respect. There were the middle-aged men, the old men, who did not bow down to her; but from middle-age, as from eld, she had a sanguine aversion.1911, Max Beerbohm, chapter II, in Zuleika Dobson:
The withered limbs of eld, the thin, gray hair […]1912, Herbert Van Allen Ferguson, Rhymes of Eld:
the alien wife / No crown of honour was as eld drew on.1912, Arthur S[anders], transl. Way, Medea, Heinemann, translation of Medea by Euripides, published 1946, page 329:
3
Archaic, Poetic Time; an age, an indefinitely long period of time.
4
Archaic, Poetic Former ages, antiquity, olden times.
Once adown the dewy way a youthful cavalier spurred with a maiden mounted behind him, swiftly passing out of sight, recalling to the imagination some romance of eld, when the damosel fled with her lover.1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 38:
eld
adj
Etymology From Middle English elde, from Old English ieldu, eldo, ieldo (“age, period of time; period; time of life, years; mature or old age, eld; an age of the world, era, epoch”), from Proto-West Germanic *aldī, from Proto-Germanic *alþį̄ (“eld, age”), from *aldaz (“grown up, mature, old”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós, from *h₂el- (“to raise, feed”). Cognate with Scots eild (“age”), North Frisian jelde (“age”), German Älte (“age”), Danish ælde (“eld, age”), Icelandic elli (“eld, age”). Related also to Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌳𐍃 (alds, “generation, age”), Old English alan (“to grow up, nourish”). More at old.
Etymology From Middle English elde, from Old English ieldu, eldo, ieldo (“age, period of time; period; time of life, years; mature or old age, eld; an age of the world, era, epoch”), from Proto-West Germanic *aldī, from Proto-Germanic *alþį̄ (“eld, age”), from *aldaz (“grown up, mature, old”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós, from *h₂el- (“to raise, feed”). Cognate with Scots eild (“age”), North Frisian jelde (“age”), German Älte (“age”), Danish ælde (“eld, age”), Icelandic elli (“eld, age”). Related also to Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌳𐍃 (alds, “generation, age”), Old English alan (“to grow up, nourish”). More at old.