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Glite Dictionary
to reveal one's age

to reveal one's age

6.1
Tell other people how old you are
  • phrasal verb
: revelar la edad
  • She is hesitant to reveal her age during social gatherings where age is often a sensitive topic.
  • she never reveals her age

Examples

  • While Paul is loath to reveal his age, he will admit to cutting his IT teeth on a TRS-80 (although he won't say which version).

    Blog text (1)

  • A woman never reveals her age.

    How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

  • A part of him was disturbed that she did not feel comfortable enough with him to reveal her age.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • While many women avoid discussing this, she refuses to reveal her age to maintain an air of mystery.

  • At the interview, he chose not to reveal his age, feeling it might influence their perception of him.

How Open

to brag
240 2.7
to reveal one's age
6.1
to keep quiet
208 2.5

Surface Forms

reveal one's age infinitive
revealed one's age past
revealed one's age past participle
revealing one's age present participle
reveals one's age third person singular

Morphology

reveal + one + age

The meaning is directly compositional: 'reveal' (to disclose) + 'one's' (possessive) + 'age' (number of years) yields 'disclose how old someone is.' This is a literal, cross-linguistically common verb + object construction, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand it.

Etymology

Reveal one's age gives a simple picture: to reveal is to lift a cover and age is how many years someone has lived. So lifting the cover to show the years means 'to tell how old you are'.