ripe old age


An age advanced in years, as in I expect to live to a ripe old age. The adjective ripe here means “fully developed physically and mentally,” but the current use of the idiom usually just signifies a long lifespan. [Second half of 1300s]

Words Nearby ripe old age

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use ripe old age in a sentence

  • Here he died at a ripe old age, not long after his wife gave birth to Caynoh and Caybatz, his successors in later years.

  • He informed us that Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred and sixty-nine.

    Essays on Modern Novelists | William Lyon Phelps
  • He had stood the trip well, Madame Guyot assured me, and would undoubtedly win through to a ripe old age.

    The Book of Susan | Lee Wilson Dodd
  • She survived the poet many years and died at the ripe old age of 71.

  • He lived to a ripe old age and was the father of thirty children.

    Stories of Old Kentucky | Martha Grassham Purcell