vetus.
ancients (pl.), men of old, forefathers; old/ancient times (pl.), antiquity; earlier events; old traditions/ways;
Meaning & usage
old, aged, elderly, ancient
long-standing
former, previous
Where this word comes from
From Proto-Italic *wetos (“year”), from Proto-Indo-European *wétos (“year”) with a semantic shift of year > having accumulated (many) years > aged, old, with the Latin term for year being annus, from a different root. Cognates include Sanskrit वत्स (vatsá, “year; calf”), Ancient Greek ἔτος (étos), Albanian vjet, Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌸𐍂𐌿𐍃 (wiþrus, “one-year-old lamb”), Old Church Slavonic ветъхъ (vetŭxŭ, “old, aged, ancient”), Russian ве́тхий (vétxij, “old, aged”), Lithuanian vẽtušas and Proto-Celtic *wetsis (Middle Irish feis, Cornish gwis, both “sow that has already given birth” < “from last year”), Etruscan 𐌅𐌄𐌕𐌖𐌔 (vetus).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.