1 [onlybeforenoun] (of people, especially two members of the same family) older:
my elder brother * his elder sister
2 (the elder) used without a noun immediately after it to show who is the older of two people:
the elder of their two sons
3 (the elder) (formal) used before or after sb's name to show that they are the older of two people who have the same name:
the elder Pitt * Pitt the elder
comparethe younger at YOUNGadj.(6) -< OLD
Part of speech: noun
1 (elders) [pl.] people of greater age, experience and authority:
Children have no respect for their elders nowadays. * the village elders (= the old and respected people of the village) * Traditions were passed on by the elders of the tribe.
2 (my, etc. elder) [sing.] (formal) a person older than me, etc:
He is her elder by several years.
3 [C] an official in some Christian churches
4 [C] a small tree with white flowers with a sweet smell (elderflowers) and bunches of small black berries (elderberries)
IDIOMS
your elders and betters people who are older and wiser than you and whom you should respect
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for elder is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is elder a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, elder is tagged as adjective.
Does elder appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — elder appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
