ripe old age
A very old age. Even at the ripe old age of 90, my grandmother still loves to go shopping. All I want at the end of my life is to die at a ripe old age surrounded by my family.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
ripe old age
a very old age. Mr. Smith died last night, but he lived to a ripe old age—99. All the Smiths seem to reach a ripe old age.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
ripe old age
An age advanced in years, as in I expect to live to a ripe old age. The adjective ripe here means "fully developed physically and mentally," but the current use of the idiom usually just signifies a long lifespan. [Second half of 1300s]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ripe old age
Advanced in years, quite old. This expression is itself of a ripe old age—it dates from the second half of the fourteenth century—and is generally used in a positive, admiring sense.W. Somerset Maugham used it in Creatures of Circumstance (1947): “. . . little house in the country where he could potter about till death claimed him at a ripe old age.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer