nonagenarian
1
8.9
- noun
- /ˌnɒnədʒəˈnɛəriən/
:
nonagenario
- At the age of 92, she proudly referred to herself as a nonagenarian.
Examples
-
The cardiologist, awed by this nonagenarian's courage and sensing how entwined Mehli's music is with his will to live, cautiously supports him in his latest endeavor.
Fiction book (2001) -
One nonagenarian senator.
Blog text (34) -
You can read Joseph's story here and more about his life as a nonagenarian in my book, Aging Our Way.
Blog text (17) -
A doomed nonagenarian is reaching the end of his tether.
Fiction book (1993) -
That wacky bunch of nonagenarians!
Fiction book (2001) -
I'm a nonagenarian, actually.
-
A colleague has introduced me to this nonagenarian, and I visit him in his Westwood, California, home to learn how heart disease has affected his rhythm.
Fiction book (2001) -
A few days ago, Anna Schwartz, a nonagenarian economist, implicated the Federal Reserve as the cause of the present lending crisis, according to the Telegraph - UK.
Blog text (1) -
Believe me, it's a Herculean effort getting tidbits from the past out of Julius Shapiro, the wisecracking nonagenarian who lives with my family half the year so that he may safely escape the Florida hurricane season.
Blog text (6) -
The fact that some hyper-fit nonagenarian might at that very minute have been toting a grand piano up Mt. Everest didn't downsize my satisfaction.
Fiction book (2001)
Synonyms
175
1.0
A person who is much older than most adults
11
1.7
A person in the later years of life
3
7.6
A person who is clearly past middle age
A person who is older and usually retired
How Old
Surface Forms
Morphology
nonagenarian = ninety (semi-transparent) = nonagen + arian
The final formation is a straightforward suffixation with '-arian' denoting a person of a specified age, but the stem 'nonagen-' is a Latin combining form not transparently linked to the English word 'ninety'.
Etymology
The word nonagenarian comes from the Latin number nonaginta, meaning 'ninety', plus the ending -arian, meaning 'person'. So a nonagenarian is simply someone who is in their nineties, that is, between 90 and 99 years old.