elder

1. 1.

   used of the older of two persons of the same name especially used to distinguish a father from his son

   “Bill Adams, Sr.”

   Synonymsoldersr.

   Similarsenior

Other forms of elder

plural

elders·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about elder

What does elder mean?

elder means "a person who is older than you are". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in elder?

elder has 2 syllables: el-der. The stress falls on "el". In IPA it is /ˈɛldɚ/.

What is another word for elder?

Close synonyms include senior, elderberry bush, older, sr.. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is elder a common word?

elder is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.