What does "ageism" mean?

The treating of a person or people, especially older people, differently from others based on assumptions, prejudices or/and stereotypes relating to their age.

What is a synonym for "ageism"?

Common synonyms include: agism, intolerance, sexism.

How do you pronounce "ageism"?

Pronounced //ˈeɪd͡ʒ.ɪzm̩//.

Ageism

//ˈeɪd͡ʒ.ɪzm̩// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
The treating of a person or people, especially older people, differently from others based on assumptions, prejudices or/and stereotypes relating to their age. countable, uncountable
"But a half-hour into this third Democratic debate, many Democrats had to be wondering: Can he [Joe Biden] go three hours? It’s our own collective ageism."
2
discrimination on the basis of a person's age wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

agism intolerance sexism

Example

More examples

"Physicians must confront ageism."

Etymology

From age + -ism. Coined by American academic Robert N. Butler in 1969.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.