• auld •
Printable Version Pronunciation: awld or awld • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: (Scots English) Old.
Notes: In most English-speaking regions midnight of December 31 is celebrated as New Year's Eve. The celebration was previously known as Old Year's Night, which continues in English-speaking Guyana and some other areas of the Caribbean.
In Play: Many English speakers around the world sing the very popular Scottish song, Auld Lang Sine "Old Long Since" at midnight tonight, including those living in Auld Reekie "Old Smoky", a sobriquet of Edinburgh, Scotland, and elsewhere in the auld warld. No doubt we will be hearing it around the New World as well in the wee hours tonight.
Word History: Today's Good Word was eald in Old English, a word which developed into Modern English old and Scots English auld. The original Proto-Indo-European root, *al- meant "grow, nourish", and with the suffix -to (*al-to) meant "grown" but went on to become English auld and old. With the suffix -m, it turned up in Latin almus "nourishing", the feminine of which is the alma in alma mater "the nourishing mother" = a school from which you graduate. Alumnus and alumna are based on the same root; they mean "student, pupil" in Latin, from alere "to nourish".
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