eldertongue

Modern English → Old English

Old English word for elder

4 headwords match “elder”, ranked by the scoring in the data pipeline. The 4 strongest follow; ellen ranks first.

  1. 1

    ellen

    score 24

    adjective · 13 inflected forms

    elder — elder tree

    • opens the headword's definition
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    strong nominative singular masculine ellen
    strong nominative singular feminine elnu, elno
    strong nominative singular neuter ellen
    strong accusative singular masculine ellenne
    strong accusative singular feminine elne
    strong accusative singular neuter ellen
  2. 2

    ieldra

    score 17

    adjective · 5 inflected forms

    elder — parent

    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    strong nominative singular masculine ieldra
    strong nominative singular feminine ieldre
    strong nominative singular neuter ieldre
    strong accusative singular masculine ieldran
    strong accusative singular feminine ieldran
    strong accusative singular neuter ieldre
  3. 3

    ealdor

    score 13

    noun, masculine · strong a-stem · 6 inflected forms

    elder — elder, parent, head of a family; senior man

    • opens the headword's definition
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular ealdor
    genitive singular ealdres
    dative singular ealdre
    accusative singular ealdor
    nominative plural ealdras
    genitive plural ealdra
  4. 4

    wealhwyrt

    score 9

    noun, feminine · strong i-stem · 4 inflected forms

    elder — wallwort, dwarf elder

    • appears in the definition
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular wealhwyrt
    genitive singular wealhwyrte
    dative singular wealhwyrte
    accusative singular wealhwyrt, wealhwyrte
    nominative plural wealhwyrte, wealhwyrta
    genitive plural wealhwyrta

How this ranking works

Scores are computed once, when the site is built, from the Wiktionary data. Every headword whose definitions mention “elder” gets the points below; the candidates are then sorted by total. The score is shown on each entry above so the order can be checked rather than trusted.

The English word opens the headword's definition+10
It appears later in the first definition+6
It appears in any definition+3
It is in the headword's links+2
It is listed as an English descendant (etymological evidence)+9
The headword has an inflection table+3
Part of speech is a proper noun−5
Part of speech is a verb (-ian derivations are noisy)−3
The headword is an alternative form−6
The first definition is longer than three words−2

A candidate has to be a real headword with its own entry: inflected forms and grammatical terminology (genitive, nominative, preterite, …) never appear here.

Not one of these?

The match may be a different sense of “elder”, or an inflected form rather than a headword. Look up the form directly — the entry page marks the grammatical case.

Candidates derived from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each entry links to its source page. · CC BY-SA 4.0 and attribution · CC BY-SA 4.0