Literary notes about older (AI summary)
The term "older" in literature serves a variety of functions, ranging from marking the passage of time and the evolution of ideas to establishing relationships and contrasting personal characteristics. In historical and philosophical texts, "older" is used to refer to earlier editions, time periods, and traditions—for instance, highlighting differences between current and past eras as in [1], [2], [3], and [4]. In narratives, the word often denotes family or social hierarchies—siblings in [5] and [6], and the age contrast in relationships as seen in [7] and [8]—or it describes a character’s transformation over time, as when characters become visibly more worn or experienced ([9], [10], [11]). Moreover, "older" may indicate both a literal sense of aging, as in comparing physical features or developmental stages ([12], [13]), and a metaphorical sense, associating wisdom or established tradition with antiquity ([14], [15]). Thus, its flexibility enriches the textual fabric by situating ideas and characters within their temporal and experiential contexts.
- XIV., Welldon’s translation—in older editions Bk. VII.)
— from Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay by Immanuel Kant - older than the fourteenth century A.D. are rare.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - It comes from the Cento Novelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio, and moreover of an extreme brevity and dryness.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - This shows that as yet there was no feeling of antagonism between the adherents of this Veda and those of the older ones.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - The Hardy sisters, Mary and Harriet, were both older than Louise.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson - He imprudently puts himself into the power of the young man and his older associate.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - The young man, named Ned Currie, was older than Alice.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson - he looked older, and more worn, and his clothes were very threadbare.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - ‘But then,’ thought Alice, ‘shall I never get any older than I am now?
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - And then I should know what to do, when I got older: I should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here—now—in England.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - As she grew older, she spent more of her time with girls.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - She has changed perceptibly—she is a trifle thinner for one thing; the light in her eyes is not so bright; she looks easily a year older.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald - He told us, that his first ode was fifty years older than his last.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - His mind seemed older than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon a younger earth.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
