General / Everyday Meaning
An elder refers to:
- A person who is older than someone else (e.g., "respect your elders" — meaning people senior to you in age).
- An older or aged person in general.
••Someone of greater age, experience, or rank in a family or group (e.g., "the elder brother/sister").
- Knowledge keepers — They preserve oral history, myths, environmental wisdom, healing practices, and cultural traditions. Younger generations rely on them to transmit essential information.
- Decision-makers and mediators — Elders frequently serve as advisors, conflict resolvers, ritual leaders, or heads of kin groups / clans.
- Authority figures — In some age-graded systems (e.g., certain East African or Plains Indigenous groups), men progress through formal "age sets" or "age grades," eventually becoming respected elders with political or ceremonial power.
••Family and community integrators — Multigenerational households are common; elders often live with kin, help with childcare, storytelling, and light work, and are supported by family obligations (e.g., filial piety in many Asian traditions).
- With age comes wisdom (universal proverb; experience teaches what youth can't).
- To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. (Chinese proverb — seek elder guidance.)
- When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. (African proverb — elders hold irreplaceable knowledge.)
- An elderly person at home is like a living golden treasure. (Chinese proverb — value their presence.)
- Respect the old and cherish the young. (Chinese/Confucian teaching — balance generations.)
••Gray hair is a crown of splendor. (Biblical/Proverbs 16:31 — honor earned through righteous living.)
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