Talking about age

2.275 When you want to say how old someone is, you have a choice of ways in which to do it. You can be exact or approximate. Similarly, when you want to say how old something is, you can use different ways, some exact, and some approximate.

2.276 When you want to talk about a person's exact age, you can do so by using

• 'be' followed by a number, and sometimes 'years old' after the number

I was nineteen, and he was twenty-one.

I'm only 63.

She is twenty-five years old.

I am forty years old.

• 'of' (and less commonly 'aged') and a number after a noun

...a child of six.

...two little boys aged about nine and eleven.

• a compound adjective, usually hyphenated, consisting of a number, followed by a singular noun referring to a period of time, followed by 'old'

...a twenty-two-year-old student.

...a five-month-old baby.

...Mr Watt's rattling, ten-year-old car.

...a violation of a six-year-old agreement.

• a compound noun consisting of a number followed by '-year-old'

The servant was a pale little fourteen-year-old who looked hardly more than ten.

All the six-year-olds are taught by one teacher.

...Melvin Kalkhoven, a tall, thin thirty-five-year-old.

indicating approximate age 2.277 When you want to talk about a person's age in an approximate way, you can do so by using

• 'in', followed by a possessive determiner, followed by a plural noun referring to a particular range of years such as 'twenties' and 'teens'

He was in his sixties.

I didn't mature till I was in my forties.

...the groups who are now in their thirties.

...when I was in my teens.

Note that you can use 'early', 'mid-', 'middle', or 'late' to indicate approximately where someone's age comes in a particular range years.

He was then in his late seventies.

She was in her mid-twenties.

Jane is only in her early forties.

• 'over' or 'under' followed by a number

She was well over fifty.

She was only a little over forty years old.

There weren't enough people who were under 25.

Note that you can also use 'above' or 'below' followed by 'the age of' and a number.

55 per cent of them were below the age of twenty-one.

• a compound noun indicating a group of people whose age is more or less than a particular number, which consists of 'over' or 'under' followed by the plural form of the particular number

The over-sixties do not want to be turned out of their homes.

Schooling for under-fives should tie expanded.

2.278 You can put several of the above structures after a noun to indicate the age of a person of thing.

...a woman in her early thirties.

...help for elderly ladies over 65.

She had four children under the age of five.

2.279 If you want to indicate that someone's age is similar to someone else's age, you can use structures such as 'of his age' and 'of her parent age' after a noun. The 'of' is often dropped.

In France most folk of Mike's age are doing their National Service.

It's easy to make friends because you're with people of your own age.

She will have a tough time when she plays with children her own age.

indicating the age of a thing 2.280 If you want to say what the age of a thing is, you can use

• 'be' followed by a number followed by 'years old'

It's at least a thousand million years old.

The house was about thirty years old.

Note that you can also use this pattern after a noun.

...rocks 200 million years old.

• a compound adjective indicating the century when something existed or was made, which consists of an ordinal number and 'century'

...a sixth-century church.

...life in fifth-century Athens.