forty-year-old
UK[ˈfɔːti jɪər əʊld]US[ˈfɔːrti jɪr oʊld]
adj
being forty years of age
n
a person who is forty years old
Morpheme Breakdown
forty
year
old
forty
40
year
time period
old
aged
Etymology
the compound "forty-year-old" is a modern english construction following a long-standing germanic pattern for expressing age. its components are all of old english origin, with "forty" deriving from the cardinal number, "year" denoting the unit of time, and "old" indicating the state of having existed. the hyphenated structure functions as a single lexical unit, either as an adjective modifying a noun or as a nominalized phrase referring to a person. this pattern is highly productive in english, allowing for the creation of similar age descriptors like "twenty-year-old" or "eighty-year-old" with transparent semantic logic.
Analysis
Structure: forty (40) + year (time period) + old (aged)
forty: from old english "feowertig", meaning the number 40.
year: from old english "gear", meaning a period of twelve months.
old: from old english "eald", meaning having lived for a long time.
Examples
she is a forty-year-old architect with her own firm.
the position is ideal for a motivated forty-year-old looking for a career change.
he bought a forty-year-old scotch whisky for the celebration.