senex

Meaning

Noun

1. (declension-3, feminine, masculine) old man, older man (typically age 40 or older; older than a iuvenis)
2. (declension-3, feminine, masculine) old person, older person
3. (declension-3, feminine, masculine, uncommon) as feminine old woman, older woman

Adj

old, aged, elderly

Concepts

old

🧓

old man

ancient

elderly man

old aged

Opposite of

iuvenis, novus, novellus, recēns

Synonyms

vetus

🧓

vetulus

🧓

antiquus

🧓

priscus

annosus

Translations

velho

🧓

viejo

🧓

vieux

🧓

vecchio

🧓

oud

🧓

alt

🧓

vell

🧓

vieillard

âgé

🧓

anciano

pîr

🧓

vegliardo

’ɣeros

Alter

Pronounced as (IPA)

[ˈsɛ.nɛks]

Etymology

PIE word
*sénos
From Proto-Italic *seneks, from Proto-Indo-European *sénos (“old”). Sihler holds the former inflection to be a consonant stem *sē, senis, with some remodeled endings taken from the antonym iuvenis; others propose an o-stem *senos (but this leaves the remade nominative singular less clearly motivated).
Nonetheless, the apparent discrepancy between the nominative senex and the oblique root sen- may reflect a Proto-Italic root *seneɣ-, which in Old Latin would yield senex in the nominative and *seneh- (later contracted to sen-) in the oblique. Cognates include Lithuanian senis (“old man”), Ancient Greek ἕνος (hénos), Old Irish sen, Proto-Brythonic *hen, Avestan 𐬵𐬀𐬥𐬀 (hana, “old”), Sanskrit सन (sána) and Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌽𐌴𐌹𐌲𐍃 (sineigs).