DuySa

45 Synonyms for “Old” and “Old-Fashioned”

Posted: 16 May 2013 09:45 PM PDT

Our culture’s attitude toward age is reflected in the often-pejorative meanings of words synonymous with old and old-fashioned, though some are neutral or even reverent. Here are forty-five words that refer to people, places, and things that are, or are considered, old or old-fashioned. (Unrelated senses are also listed.)
1. Aged: advanced in age, typical of old age; also, at an age
2. Aging: advancing in age, or the concept of growing older
3. Ancient: aged, old-fashioned, or pertaining to long-ago times, or see venerable
4. Anile: pertaining to or resembling an old woman, or see senile
5. Antiquated: of advanced age, or out of fashion or style
6. Archaic: pertaining to an earlier time
7. Dated: old-fashioned; also, provided with a date
8. Decrepit: infirm because of old age, or dilapidated, run down, or worn out
9. Démodé: unfashionable
10. Demoded: see démodé
11. Doddering: see senile
12. Elderly: pertaining to the late period of life, or old-fashioned
13. Fossilized: see outmoded; also, fixed or rigid, or converted into a fossil
14. Geriatric: old or out of style, or pertaining to older people or to the process of aging
15. Kaput: outmoded; also, broken, or defeated or destroyed
16. Long lived: characterized by a long life span
17. Medieval: see antiquated and outmoded; also, pertaining to the Middle Ages in Europe
18. Moribund: inactive, obsolete, or nearing death
19. Mossy: see antiquated; also, something similar to moss, or covered by moss or something similar
20. Moth eaten: see antiquated and outmoded; also, eaten by moths or their larvae
21. Noachian: see ancient and antiquated; also, pertaining to Noah or the era in which he lived
22. Neolithic: old-fashioned because a holdover from another era; also, a scientific term (always capitalized) referring to the later Stone Age
23. Obsolete: old-fashioned, or no longer useful; also, in biology, flawed or vestigial in comparison to similar features
24. Out of date: see outmoded
25. Outdated: see outmoded
26. Outmoded: out of style, or not acceptable or current
27. Outworn: see outmoded
28. Overage: too old to be of use, or older than normal
29. Over the hill: advanced in age, or past one’s prime
30. Passé: past one’s prime, and see outmoded
31. Prehistoric: see outmoded; also, in archaeology and language, from before written history
32. Quaint: old-fashioned; also, odd, elegant, or skillfully designed
33. Retro: see retrograde (however, the short form is from the French term rétrospectif, not from retrograde)
34. Retrograde: fashionable nostalgic, or trendily old-fashioned; also, various technical senses of moving backward or contrary to normal motion
35. Rusty: clumsy or slow due to old age or lack of practice
36. Senescent: old, or becoming old; also, the part of a plant’s life cycle from full maturity onward
37. Senile: pertaining to old age, especially to loss of mental faculties
38. Senior: older, or older than another; also, someone in the highest level in an institution or organization or with high rank or status
39. Spavined: see decrepit; also, afflicted with swelling
40. Stone Age: a period or a stage in the development of a field or institution considered old or old-fashioned; also, in archeology, the earliest period of human culture (always capitalized in both senses)
41. Superannuated: older than is typical, disqualified for active duty because of age, or old-fashioned
42. Tottery: infirm or precarious
43. Unyoung: old
44. Venerable: prompting respect because of age and attendant wisdom or skill, or impressive because of age; also, sacred or deserving of reverence
45. Vintage: old or old-fashioned; also, among the best (said of a particular person or thing), or of enduring interest or worth.

9 Types of Functional Variation

Posted: 29 May 2013 09:39 PM PDT

Usually, we easily identify a word’s part of speech, but a given word’s grammatical category can shift, or one form of the word can differ in meaning from another, in a process called functional variation.
For example, note the change in meaning of fly in the following sentences: “He caught a fly” (noun), “He caught a fly ball” (adjective), “He will fly there tonight” (verb), and “He caught the ball on the fly” (part of an adverbial phrase). These and other types of functional variation are described below:
1. Nouns as Adjectives
Nouns are frequently employed to modify other nouns (for example, in “light fixture,” “grape jam,” and “railroad track”). However, problems include ambiguous usage, such as in the phrase “box set,” which can mean “a set in a box” (and is therefore better rendered “boxed set”) or “a set of boxes,” and adjective stacking, or employing an excessive series of nouns as adjectives.
2. Adjectives as Nouns
The reverse can take place, as when a phrase such as “a hypothetical situation” is truncated to the adjective turned noun hypothetical or when a person or a group is identified, for example, as in “the homeless.”
3. Nouns as Verbs
This type of transformation is ubiquitous in the business world and in other jargon-friendly environments, where terms for things such as impact, mainstream, and text become action words.
4. Verbs as Nouns
Present participles such as laughing are employed as nouns: In “Who was laughing?” laughing is a verb; however, it’s a noun in “Did you hear that laughing?” (although it would be better to use the noun laughter).
5. Verbs as Adjectives
Participles also serve as adjectives. To use the previous example, laughing can also modify a noun, as in “See that laughing girl?” (although one could also write, “See that girl laughing?”).
6. Adjectives as Verbs
Such shifts are so rare that the only ones that occur to me are terms I occasionally use in these posts: lowercase and uppercase, as in “Lowercase job titles after a name,” in which lowercase refers to an action involving job titles, rather than describing a type of treatment of a job title.
7. Prepositions as Adverbs
When one refers, for example, to “calling up reserves” or “casting off from the dock,” one is using idiomatic phrasal verbs to describe how calling or casting occurs, though some phrasal verbs are merely figurative; “calling up,” for example, involves no upward movement, while “casting off” literally results in one no longer being on the dock.
8. Conjunctions as Prepositions
In rare cases, a conjunction can serve as a preposition, as when but, which usually functions as a conjunction, as in “I was there, but I didn’t see you,” is employed as a synonym for except, as in “Everyone but you has agreed.”
9. Various Parts of Speech as Interjections
Most parts of speech can serve as an interruptive or exclamatory term, including nouns (“Dude!”), pronouns (“Me!), verbs (“See?”), adjectives (“Wonderful!”), and adverbs (“Slowly!”).