antiquity.
maturity; decline, decay; senility &c 128.
seniority, eldership, primogeniture.
archaism &c (the past) 122; thing of the past, relic of the past;
megatherium†; Sanskrit.
tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law.
V. be old &c adj.; have had its day, have seen its day; become old &c
adj.; age, fade, senesce.
Adj. old, ancient, antique; of long standing, time-honored, venerable;
elder, eldest; firstborn.
prime; primitive, primeval, primigenous†; paleolontological,
paleontologic, paleoanthropological, paleoanthropic†, paleolithic,
primordial, primordinate†; aboriginal &c (beginning) 66; diluvian†,
antediluvian; protohistoric†; prehistoric; antebellum, colonial,
precolumbian; patriarchal, preadamite†; paleocrystic†; fossil,
paleozoolical, paleozoic, preglacial†, antemundane†; archaic, classic,
medieval, Pre-Raphaelite, ancestral, black-letter.
immemorial, traditional, prescriptive, customary, whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary; inveterate, rooted.
antiquated, of other times, rococo, of the old school, after-age,
obsolete; out of date, out of fashion, out of it; stale, old-fashioned,
behind the age; old-world; exploded; gone out, gone by; passe, run out;
senile &c 128; time worn; crumbling &c (deteriorated) 659; secondhand.
old as the hills, old as Methuselah, old as Adam†, old as history.
[geological eras (list, starting at given number of years bp)]
Archeozoic [5,000,000,000], Proterozoic [1,500,000,000], Paleozoic
[600,000,000], Mesozoic [220,000,000], Cenozoic [70,000,000].
[geological periods] Precambrian, Cambrian [600,000,000],
Ordovician [500,000,000], Silurian [440,000,000], Devonian
[400,000,000], Mississippian [350,000,000], Pennsylvanian
[300,000,000], Permian [270,000,000], Triassic [220,000,000], Jurassic
[180,000,000], Cretaceous [135,000,000], Tertiary [70,000,000],
Paleogene [70,000,000], Neocene [25,0000,000], Quaternary [1,000,000].
[geological epochs (list, starting at 70,000,000 years bp)]
Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent.
Adv. since the world was made, since the year one, since the days of
Methuselah.
Phr. vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi [Lat.] [Tacitus].