Olden

//ˈəʊl.dn̩// adj, name, verb

adj, name, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To grow old; age; assume an older appearance or character; become affected by age. dated, intransitive, rare

    "Of all Sedley's opponents in his debates with his creditors which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the humiliated old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he oldened more than he had done for fifteen years before—the most determined and obstinate seemed to be John Osborne, his old friend and neighbour […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    From or relating to a previous era. not-comparable

    "olden days, olden times"

  2. 2
    Old; ancient. archaic, not-comparable

    "We […] told over the story of past sufferings, and renewed olden vows of devotion."

Adjective
  1. 1
    relating to time long past wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    An unincorporated community in Howell County, Missouri, United States. countable, uncountable
  3. 3
    An unincorporated community in Eastland County, Texas, United States. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
ageage oldagedagelessancientantediluvian

Example

More examples

"The legend has come down in this district from olden times."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English olden, probably originally an inflected plural form of old (compare Old English ealdum, dative plural of eald (“old”)), but later reanalysed as equivalent to old + -en (“made of”). Otherwise derived from Old Norse aldinn (“ancient, old”).

Etymology 2

From old + -en (“to make (adjective)”).

Etymology 3

Variant of Alden.

Related phrases

olden time

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