forty-three-year-old
UK[ˈfɔːti θriː jɪər əʊld]US[ˈfɔːrti θriː jɪr oʊld]
adj
Being forty-three years of age.
n
A person who is forty-three years old.
Morpheme Breakdown
forty
three
year
old
forty
four tens
three
year
old
Etymology
The compound "forty-three-year-old" is a modern English construction built from fundamental Germanic elements. Its first component, "forty," descends from Old English "feowertig," a compound of "feower" (four) and "tig" (group of ten). "Three" originates from the Proto-Germanic "þrīz," and "year" from "jērą," both with deep Proto-Indo-European roots. The final element, "old," from Proto-Germanic "aldaz," signifies age. The logic of the compound is transparent and arithmetic: it sequentially denotes a quantity of decades, additional single years, the unit of time, and the state of having that age, creating a highly efficient descriptive phrase.
Analysis
Structure: forty + three + year + old
- forty: From Old English 'feowertig', meaning "four tens". A cardinal number.
- three: From Old English 'þrīe', meaning the cardinal number 3.
- year: From Old English 'gēar', meaning a period of 365/366 days.
- old: From Old English 'eald', meaning having lived for a long time.
Examples
She is a forty-three-year-old architect from Lisbon.
The position requires a forty-three-year-old with specific technical experience.
He became a father for the first time as a forty-three-year-old.