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PlainSpell

old

UK /əʊld/adjective, noun

old is spelled O-L-D: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 562 times per million words in written English, the 173rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, old means “Of an object, concept, relationship, etc., having existed for a relatively long period of time” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in old?

Letters3: O-L-D
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing562 times per million words; the 173rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is old?

Old appears 562 times per million words in written English, the 173rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce old?

  • UK /əʊld/
  • UK [ɒʊɫd]
  • British /əwld/

Old has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-old.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-old.wav, En-us-old.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with old

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

auld vs old0 B

Also written: ould.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with old?

9 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as old from its last stressed vowel (/əʊld/, British pronunciation):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: dol.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of old

  • older comparative
  • elder comparative
  • oldest superlative
  • eldest superlative
  • ol
  • ol'
  • ole
  • owld
  • aad
  • oul
  • oul'
  • ould
  • aud
  • aul
  • auld
  • wold

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does old mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Of an object, concept, relationship, etc., having existed for a relatively long period of time.

    an old abandoned building

  2. 2

    Of a living being, having lived for most of the expected years.

    a wrinkled old man

  3. 3

    Of a perishable item, having existed for most of, or more than, its shelf life.

    an old loaf of bread

  4. 4

    Of a species or language, belonging to a lineage that is distantly related to others.

    the ginkgo is one of the oldest living trees

  5. 5

    Having been used and thus no longer new or unused.

    I find that an old toothbrush is good to clean the keyboard with.

  6. 6

    Having existed or lived for the specified time.

    How old are they? She’s five years old and he's seven. We also have a young teen and a two-year-old child.

  7. 7

    Former, previous.

    My new car is not as good as my old one.  a school reunion for Old Etonians

  8. 8

    That is no longer in existence.

    The footpath follows the route of an old railway line.

noun

  1. 1

    People who are old; old beings; the older generation, taken as a group.

    A civilised society should always look after the old in the community.

  2. 2

    slangA person older than oneself, especially an adult in relation to a teenager.

    Near-synonyms: geezer, oldie, oldster; see also Thesaurus:old person

  3. 3

    slangOne's parents.

    I had to sneak out to meet my girlfriend and tell the olds I was going to the library.

  4. 4

    AustraliaA typically dark-coloured lager brewed by the traditional top-fermentation method.

noun

as OLD
  1. 1

    Abbreviation of online dating.

  2. 2

    Abbreviation of obsessive love disorder

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Old in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchvieux, vieille (of an object, concept, etc: having existed for…), ancien, ex- (former)
Germanalt (of an object, concept, etc: having existed for…)
Portuguesevelho, antigo (of an object, concept, etc: having existed for…), idoso (of a living being: having lived for relatively…), de (having existed or lived for the specified time)
Spanishantiguo, viejo, vejancón (of an object, concept, etc: having existed for…), anciano, provecto (of a living being: having lived for relatively…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does old come from?

Inherited from Middle English old, oold, from Old English ald, eald (“old, aged, ancient, antique, primeval”), from Proto-West Germanic *ald, from Proto-Germanic *aldaz (“grown-up”), originally a participle form, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós (“grown, tall, big”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after old