old man
"old-man" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“old man” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An elderly man.
Corpus desk
Index EN-old-man · old man · English
old man · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | old man |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “old man” in English
Rare enough to double-check
old man is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 11 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for old man, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English alde mann, aldman, elde man, oldeman, from Old English eald man. The correct English form is old man, spelled O-L-D- -M-A-N.
Definition
- 1An elderly man.
- 2One's father.
- 3A husband, or male significant other, irrespective of age.
- 4One's male employer, irrespective of age.
- 5A unit's commanding officer, or the commander of a naval vessel, irrespective of age.
- 6An Australian Aboriginal elder.
- 7Term of address for a male friend, irrespective of age.
- 8Synonym of Old Adam.
- 9Synonym of southernwood.
- 10The state of human nature without the spiritual transformation brought about by redemption through Jesus Christ.
- 11Used attributively to denote something of exceptional size, strength, age etc.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how old man appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He smacked me around some. Didn't everybody's old man?
One of her companions - a lanky youth with a Beatle-cut hairdo - hammered in a pin with the flat of his hand and hissed: "That's for the old man - he wouldn't let me use the car tonight."
Etymology
From Middle English alde mann, aldman, elde man, oldeman, from Old English eald man.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.