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A nonagenarian is a person who is ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two… all the way up to ninety-nine. Not a hundred yet — that person is a centenarian, a different word. We use it as a noun (she is a nonagenarian) and also like an adjective (a nonagenarian painter). It is a rather formal, slightly word. At a family dinner you are far more likely to hear she's in her nineties or she's ninety-four. Newspapers, doctors, and people writing carefully about old age like nonagenarian because it is neat and exact. It does not mean “very old” in a vague way. A person of eighty-eight is not a nonagenarian, even if they seem ancient to you. The Latin piece means “ninety”; English took the word from that, sometimes through French.
九旬老人(九十到九十九歲)
組成Latin nōnāgēnārius (“containing ninety”) + English -an, from nōnāginta (“ninety”, “nine tens”), either directly or via French nonagénaire.
同家族的字
- octogenariansame Latin age-word pattern, for someone in their eighties
- septuagenariansame pattern, for someone in their seventies
- centenariansame -arian pattern, for someone who is a hundred
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,原文照列,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
nonagenariannoun/ˌnɑnəd͡ʒɪˈnɛriən/
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Synonym of ninetysomething: a person between 90 and 99 years old.
nonagenarianadj/ˌnɑnəd͡ʒɪˈnɛriən/
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Of or related to ninetysomethings.
- "But what’s that got to do with your health and longevity?" the neighbor inquired. "Why," said the nonagenarian, "I've spent most of my life in the open air."
資料來源:英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary(CC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。