elderly

Elderly is the careful, polite word for people who are old. An elderly neighbour who still does her own shopping, an elderly couple taking the bench halfway up the hill, seats at the front of the bus kept free for elderly passengers.

It stands at a slight distance: you would write elderly man in a news report and call your own grandfather old, or just Grandad. With the it turns into a group — the elderly — as in care for the elderly, though many organisations now say older people instead, which sounds less like a category. Elderly is for humans; a machine past its best is ancient, not elderly, unless you are joking. Do not swap it for elder, which marks the older of two people (my elder sister) or a respected figure (a village elder). There is no verb and no comparative — nobody is elderlier than anyone else.