Old, older, oldest
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François Lang sent in the following quandary:
In traditional Chinese society, people like to be thought of and referred to and act as "old", even if they're only in their 50s, because then they thereby gain respect and get perks. In the West, polite people go out of their way to avoid calling someone in their 60s, 70s, and 80s "old", for fear of hurting their feelings. I know, because chronologically I am definitely "old" (though I certainly don't feel that way). It's all a matter of "subjective age".
Selected readings
- "Do We Get Less Narcissistic as We Get Older?"
By Anna North, NYT (October 6, 2014) - "The age you feel means more than your actual birthdate"
By David Robson, BBC (7/19/18) - "Subjective Age Across the Life Span: A Differentiated, Longitudinal Approach"
By Anna E Kornadt, Thomas M Hess, Peggy Voss, Klaus Rothermund
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 73, Issue 5 (July 2018), Pages 767–777
Abstract
Objectives
How old people feel compared with their actual age, their so-called “subjective age” (SA), is a central indicator of individual aging experiences and predicts developmental outcomes, such as health and mortality, across the life span. We investigated the multidimensional structure of SA with respect to specific life domains, focusing on domain differences as well as age group differences and age-related changes. Furthermore, we inspected the relationship between SA and how people perceive their future as old persons (future self-views).
Thomas said,
January 23, 2026 @ 8:32 am
The real conundrum here is: An older man is typically younger than an old man.
Jonathan Smith said,
January 23, 2026 @ 9:05 am
Old/older/oldest and the like are adjective/comparative form/superlative form; these aren't like small < medium < large.
Other considerations might be that "old man" is kind of lexicalized, and "older" can mean "on the old side".
Bob Ladd said,
January 23, 2026 @ 9:48 am
Yes, @Thomas has identified what I think François Lang was really asking about. There seem to be a number of contexts where the comparative form of an adjective can be used to mean "somewhat [ADJ]", "rather [ADJ]", while the basic form of the adjective is left to refer to more extreme end of a contextually implicit scale. Hence "old" means "near the top end of the normal human age scale" while "older" just means "older than me" or "older than the median".
Compare: "we'll need this for the cold weather" with "we'll need this once the colder weather starts". Here "cold" means "as cold as it usually gets here", where "colder" means "colder than now, relatively/moderately cold".
Or: "he bought a cheap car after his business failed" with "because of his financial difficulties he's driving a cheaper car these days". "Cheap" really implies something that might not make it through the next inspection; "cheaper" could mean simply that he had to downgrade from a Mercedes to a Chevrolet.
I'm not sure how widely this use of the comparative can be generalized, but it certainly doesn't seem to be unique to "old".
ajay said,
January 23, 2026 @ 10:11 am
There seem to be a number of contexts where the comparative form of an adjective can be used to mean "somewhat [ADJ]", "rather [ADJ]", while the basic form of the adjective is left to refer to more extreme end of a contextually implicit scale. Hence "old" means "near the top end of the normal human age scale" while "older" just means "older than me" or "older than the median".
I think this is it. If you use a comparative without an explicit thing to compare it to – "George is the taller of the two brothers" – then there is an implicit unspoken thing, which could be "than the previous or alternative one" as in "he bought a cheaper car", or "than the population median" as in "most of our customers are older men".
But "cheap" or "old" doesn't just imply "cheaper than the median", it's more like "bottom 20% of price" or something.
J.W. Brewer said,
January 23, 2026 @ 10:31 am
To give an example in the other direction, my younger brother is now 56 and thus substantially older than the median member of the population, yet he remains my younger brother.
katarina said,
January 23, 2026 @ 10:35 am
In the Chinese lunar calendar one is one year old at birth and I'd get mixed up how old my parents from China were. One day many years ago my mom said, "Your dad is 88 and…," and I said, "But Dad said he's 90 !" My mom retorted, "Oh, he's just boasting. When people are young, like young actresses, they want to take off a few years. When they're old, like your dad, they want to add a few years."
Mai Kuha said,
January 23, 2026 @ 10:55 am
Overlapping with the relative age explanation, this phenomenon seems related to markedness.
With the unmarked member of a pair of adjectives, questions such as these do not suggest that Pat/the box/the signal has the quality in question:
How old is Pat?
How tall is Pat?
How big is the box?
How strong is the signal?
With the marked member of the adjective pair, the questions do suggest that Pat is young, etc.
How young is Pat?
How short is Pat?
How small is the box?
How weak is the signal?
Robert Coren said,
January 23, 2026 @ 10:57 am
As someone who is approaching 80, I have no problem thinking of myself as an old man. What somewhat bemuses me is the designation "senior", especially as I've noticed signs in my summer neighborhood in Gloucester, MA, saluting "seniors"; I always have to remind myself that they're talking about kids who have just finished high school.
@katarina: I know how your dad felt. Note that I said "approaching 80" above, whereas a normal characterization of my age would be to say that I'm 79. I find that every time I approach one of these "milestones" dictated by our decimal numbering system I start thinking of my self as the milestone age several months before it happens, with a subtext of "let's get on with it already".
katarina said,
January 23, 2026 @ 11:14 am
Robert,
Thanks for your comment.
I know little children want to be older. One day I asked my three-year-old grandson, "Timmy, are you a little boy?" He replied, "No, I'm a big boy."
He was so happy when he reached the age of five and could finally carry a lunchbox with a sandwich and go to school like his sister.
Terry K. said,
January 23, 2026 @ 11:51 am
François Lang's thought (quoted in the original post) that "'older' should mean more old than simply 'old'." is, I would say, mistaken. Old describes age, which exists on a continuum. One does not need to be old to be older. When my brother was born, I was his older sibling, because I was older than him, but I was not old. With this sort of adjective, something or someone doesn't have to be X to be Xer. So it makes sense that that, as discussed in previous comments, if "older" and other such adjectives are used without a comparison, the implicit understood point of comparison would be the median. Which, depending on how much one includes with "old" in the context, can indeed make "older" younger than "old".
wgj said,
January 23, 2026 @ 11:55 am
In northern China, the title "old" as in Old Wang are given to men starting not in their fifties, but mid forties. This also somewhat tracks with the official age brackets for cadres (although it's not clear whether the two are linked): "youth cadres" ends at 35, and "middle and younger aged" ends at 45. Meaning after 45, one no longer enjoys any systematic "youth bonus" – and is therefore at least implicitly (in politics, where the youth bonus is worth a lot) and sometimes explicitly (outside politics and especially in cultural arenas where senior status has its own value) considered "old".
Calculator said,
January 23, 2026 @ 12:42 pm
It’s funny how the comparative form acts as a softener here. "Older" feels relative, like you are just further along the curve, whereas "old" sounds like a definitive state. I suspect this is purely cultural. We seem to fear the label more than the reality of aging itself.
Chas Belov said,
January 23, 2026 @ 12:49 pm
As an old man, I don't mind the term "old man." I'll occasionally say to myself "not bad for an old man."
Noting the additional definition of "old man" as "father." Or, in Cantonese, louh dàau, "old bean" = "father."
Chas Belov said,
January 23, 2026 @ 1:16 pm
Also noting "oldest man" having the dual meaning of the oldest man currently surviving in the world and earliest known man recorded by archeology. I think.
Stephen Goranson said,
January 23, 2026 @ 1:23 pm
Ol' man river.
He don't die?
Olaf Zimmermann said,
January 23, 2026 @ 2:03 pm
May I humbly suggest:
old, older, oldest, ur-old
and leave it up to the reader to assign the appropriate age ranges.
(NB "dead from the neck up" applies to many (i.e. more than several) after the age of 16.
Philip Taylor said,
January 23, 2026 @ 4:51 pm
« As an old man, I don't mind the term "old man." I'll occasionally say to myself "not bad for an old man" » — and as a old (almost 79) man who spent some of his formative years in the control room of the External Telecommunications Executive of the GPO, I regard "old man" as the standard form of address to any (male) colleague with whom one is communicating remotely (e.g., "I say, old man, your signal is breaking up rather badly — any chance you could try another channel ?"), often abbreviated to "OM" when using telegraphese (e.g., "MNY TKS DR OM").
Barbara Phillips Long said,
January 23, 2026 @ 11:00 pm
Being young had its benefits and disadvantages. Being old has benefits and disadvantages. The greatest disadvantage of being in my mid-70s is that some people insist on calling me “young lady,” thereby bringing my age to the attention of all nearby, mostly at times when my age is irrelevant. (Cashiers and salespeople, why do you do this?)
Equally, I am not enamored of the description of someone as being “X years young,” when X is generally greater than 60 (and often closer to 85 or 90). In fact, I suppose someone could describe a 5-year-old child as being “5 years young,” but I haven’t ever heard it.
Rachel Boughton said,
January 24, 2026 @ 2:31 am
At 65, I find being described as "old" feels rather insulting. Although I do sometimes say it to myself to try and get used to it. The term "older" feels less intrusive, less of a label. But then in a Coast Salish language class I took last week, the teacher instructed the group to let the " respected elders" (those with grey hair) to go first in line for refreshments. Suddenly I thought, "I could get used to this!" I don't like being called old if it means being irrelevant, but I do like it if it means being respected and cared about.
Peter Cyrus said,
January 24, 2026 @ 4:31 am
"Older" means "older than some reference/expectation", but not necessairy older than "old".
bks said,
January 24, 2026 @ 7:17 am
I'm dating an older woman.
I'm dating an old woman.
These are synonymous at my age, but when I was actually dating, not.
Victor Mair said,
January 24, 2026 @ 7:40 am
old — declaration; observation
older — relative; rather
oldest — statement of fact; absolute (depending upon the group / set under discussion)
wgj said,
January 24, 2026 @ 7:45 am
This also reminds me of the US television series "The Old Man", which is intentionally ambiguous about whom the title is referring to. Both main characters are being referred to as "the old man" by others, while they themselves talk about their former mentor as their "old man", plus there's a fourth "old man" who is rarely seen but whose influence is felt all the time.
Milt Boyd said,
January 24, 2026 @ 9:38 am
Once in Latin class, we encountered the phrase "an older woman" without any clear comparison or reference to older than what. The class was instructed that this was a common way to avoid calling her "an old woman" which would have been impolite, if true. Works in other languages too.
Rodger C said,
January 24, 2026 @ 10:38 am
Milt Boyd: Aha! "Seniors"!
Robert Coren said,
January 24, 2026 @ 10:47 am
@Philip, with regard to "old man" as a friendly for of address to a male of any age: I flash back many decades to Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love, in which an English "colleague" (who is actually a Soviet agent) consistently addresses James Bond as "old man", which Bond, class snob that he is, considers "dreadful".
Victor Mair said,
January 24, 2026 @ 10:50 am
There's also an affectionate "old" that is unrelated to chronological age.
When I was doing research on the mummies of Eastern Central Asia beginning in the early 90s, the chief archeologist of the entire, enormous region was Wang Binghua, who was older than me, but he always called me "Lǎo Méi 老梅" ("Old Mair"). At first that made me feel uncomfortable, but later when I realized he was referring to me that way because he wanted to indicate that we were buddies (traipsing through the desert and over mountains, etc.), I got used to it — sort of.
François Lang said,
January 24, 2026 @ 11:51 am
Yes, @Thomas hit the nail squarely on the head, as @Bob Ladd echoed.
Thanks to all for your thoughts and wisdom!
katarina said,
January 24, 2026 @ 1:50 pm
Growing up in China many years ago, all my dad's buddies –mostly officials including diplomats–called each other "old __", Old Chen, Old Zhao, old Qian, etc. His office staffers, young men in their 20s, also called Old Xie, Old Wang, etc.
Old, "lao", was a term of affection or familiarity. The cook, the gardener, the chauffeur, young and old, were also called Lao Wang, Lao Tan, Lao Zhang and so forth. I never knew their names. Unfortunately this was not applied to women.
I like the American/English courtesy term "older" for old person.
Unfortunately, Mandarin doesn't have this courtesy term for old people. The closest courtesy term is zhangbei "older/senior generation", but it is a noun, not at adjective like "older". So you'd say "She is a zhangbei (she is an elder)." I especially like the American courtesy applied to dogs– "senior dog".
Roscoe said,
January 24, 2026 @ 2:52 pm
Then there’s the scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” where King Arthur addresses a peasant as “old man”:
PEASANT: I’m 37. I’m not “old.”
ARTHUR: Well, I can’t just call you “man.”
Jenny Chu said,
January 24, 2026 @ 3:00 pm
What is the name/explanation for the comparative phenomenon where "the food was hot but now it's only warm at best" is okay but "the food is hot but now it's warmer" doesn't mean the temperature has fallen (ie it doesn't now imply that the food is closer to a "warm" state than its previous "hot" state)? Likewise, "the drink was cold but now barely cool" but *"The drink was cold but now it's cooler." (*for the meaning of the temperature rising)
Philip Taylor said,
January 24, 2026 @ 6:40 pm
I'm not convinced, Jenny, that anyone would ever say "the food is hot but now it's warmer".
shrdlu said,
January 25, 2026 @ 11:11 am
Relatedly, about comparatives and superlatives diverging from their original adjectives: https://onwords.substack.com/p/when-i-found-out-this-positive-adjective
Olaf Zimmermann said,
January 25, 2026 @ 1:15 pm
"as old as the hills" (G): "steinalt" – as apposed to "uralt" ; (F) ???
dainichi said,
January 25, 2026 @ 8:31 pm
> "Old" is the positive form of the adjective, and "older" the comparative.
In "an older man", often "older" is not the comparative of "old", but a non-comparable separate lexical entry.
> So "older" should mean more old than simply "old".
A non sequitur. A one-year-old is older than a newborn baby.
Ryan said,
January 25, 2026 @ 10:28 pm
>> Do We Get Less Narcissistic as We Get Older?
>Although in my late 60s, I might take umbrage at being described as "an older man", I would be genuinely upset at being described as "an old man".
I think that answers the question.
ajay said,
January 26, 2026 @ 8:37 am
There's also an affectionate "old" that is unrelated to chronological age.
As in "my old lady"/"my old man" meaning my wife or husband.
KevinM said,
January 26, 2026 @ 3:20 pm
Politeness sometimes requires vagueness. "Older" is less blunt than "old" because it is an unmoored comparison, permitting the hearer to supply their own comparator. A second grader is older than a first grader, and so is a retiree. When used as in the example, an "older man" doesn't necessarily mean "older than 65"; it could more vaguely mean "older than young." So it is less in-your-face. (I, by the way, am old by any measure, and don't mind being told so.)
Belial Issimo said,
January 26, 2026 @ 8:47 pm
In the euphemism-speak of real estate listings, a "newer" kitchen is less desirable than a "new" kitchen. Sounds like the same phenomenon.
Victor Mair said,
January 27, 2026 @ 8:22 am
Yes, to avoid the gaucherie of "newish".
Chas Belov said,
January 26, 2026 @ 11:39 pm
@Victor Mair, @katarina: I seem to recall reading many years ago that rock musician Cui Jian, possibly the seminal artist of PRC rock music, was affectionately referred to by his fans as "Lao Cui."