age (English)

Where does "age" come from?

The word "age" traces its roots back to the Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu-, a term representing "vital force" or life. This evolved into the Latin aetātem, and eventually transformed through Vulgar Latin and Old French into the Middle English "age," which arrived to replace the native Old English "ieldu." Over time, the term expanded from its primary sense of a lifetime or period of life to describe various historical eras and spans of time.

Full etymology tree

age (English), 'The amount of time that some being has been alive, or that some thing has been in existence, as measured from its birth or origin until the present or until some other given reference point. (Often measured in number of years; alternatively in months, days, hours, etc.; see also the usage notes)'
- inherited age (Middle English), 'The age of someone (or rarely something); how old someone is.'
  - borrowed aage (Old French), 'alternative form of aage'
    - inherited *aetāticum (Latin), 'age'
      - derived aetās (Latin), 'the period of a life: lifetime, lifespan'
        inherited *aiwotāts (Proto-Italic), 'age'
        derived *aiwom (Proto-Italic), 'age'
        inherited *h₂eyu- (Proto-Indo-European)
        inherited *h₂ey- (Proto-Indo-European), 'vital force, life, age, eternity'
        suffix *-tāts (Proto-Italic), 'used to form nouns representing state of being'
      - suffix -āticum (Latin), 'Used to form nouns indicating pertinence to the root verb or noun.'
- contraction -ed (English), 'Used to form past tenses of (regular) verbs. In linguistics, it is used for the base form of any past form. See -t for a variant.'

Direct ancestors

Updated July 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris