eldest

«eldest» in Mova's school dictionary: oldest, used for people in the same family: «my eldest… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (eldest — superlative of old, used for family); noun (the eldest)

meaning for a pupil

1) Eldest means oldest, used for people in the same family: «my eldest brother». tree →

2) The eldest is the oldest child in a family. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories and family talk eldest shows age order among brothers and sisters. In maths problems you may compare ages to find the eldest. Phrases: «the eldest son», «my eldest», «eldest of three».

examples

• Tom is the eldest of four children. tree →
• My eldest sister is at university. tree →
• The eldest daughter looked after the little ones. tree →
• Sara is 12, Ben 9, Mo 7; who is the eldest? tree →
• In fairy tales the eldest brother often fails first. tree →
• She's my eldest. (her oldest child) tree →
• Well, the eldest son undertook the task. tree →

note

Only for family members: «my eldest brother», but «the oldest building». Elder (comparative) is only used before nouns or with «the»: «my elder sister»; you say «older than», never «elder than». Maths: the eldest has the largest age.

In the corpora

• At a Hindu funeral the body is usually cremated; traditionally the eldest son leads the rites, though today daughters sometimes do too.
• And David was the youngest; and the three eldest followed Saul. —
• And it fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «eldest» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.