senex

Etymology
From.

Noun

 * 1) An older or old man.

Etymology
From, reshaped from. Sihler holds the former inflection to be a consonant stem *sē, senis, with some remodeled endings taken from the antonym ; others propose an o-stem (but this leaves the remade nominative singular less clearly motivated). Nonetheless, the apparent discrepancy between the nominative senex and the oblique root sen- may reflect a Proto-Italic root *seneɣ-, which in Old Latin would yield senex in the nominative and *seneh- (later contracted to sen-) in the oblique. Cognates include 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 and 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) old man, older man typically age 40 or older; older than a
 * 2) * ; speech 2, section 5
 * magno opere contemno, conlectum ex senibus desperatis, ex agresti luxuria, ex rusticis decoctoribus, ex eis qui vadimonia deserere quam illum exercitum maluerunt;
 * I thoroughly despise that army composed of desperate old men, of clownish profligates, and uneducated spendthrifts; of those who have preferred to desert their bail rather than that army
 * 1) old person, older person
 * 2)   old woman, older woman
 * 1) old person, older person
 * 2)   old woman, older woman
 * 1)   old woman, older woman
 * 1)   old woman, older woman

Descendants

 * Borrowings:
 * Borrowings:

Adjective

 * 1)  old, aged, elderly

Usage notes

 * Mostly used with animate masculine nouns: Allen and Greenough suggests it can be characterized as a "masculine adjective". However, some inanimate examples occur in the poetry of Martial (masculine: senibus autumnis, senem ... cadum; feminine: senibus ... Damascenis) and in the Appendix Vergiliana (neuter: senibus ... saeclis). See Citations:senex. As with the noun, feminine use is rare. The explicitly feminine counterpart is sometimes used adjectivally in like manner. The late antique grammar Instituta artium (pseudo-Probus, probably 4th century) says it is grammatical to use  and  in apposition or as a predicate with a neuter noun such as  (e.g. senex mancipium "old man slave" = "old (male) slave", hoc mancipium senex est "this slave is an old man" = "this slave is old") but denies that senex is a neuter inflected adjective form in this context, saying it is impossible for it to be preceded by a neuter demonstrative (e.g. per pseudo-Probus, one can't say *hoc senex mancipium "this-N old man slave-N").
 * The forms are normally identical to those of the noun, with consonant-stem ablative singular and genitive plural  (compare ). Alternative i-stem forms (ablative singular  and genitive plural ) are only attested postclassically and are not usual.
 * The superlative form is not used in Classical Latin; the sense "oldest" is expressed instead with the phrase.