C19: from Latin quadrāgēnārius consisting of forty, from quādrāgintā forty
quadragenarian in American English
(ˌkwɑdrədʒəˈnɛəriən)
adjective
1.
40 years of age
2.
between the ages of 40 and 50
noun
3.
a person who is 40 years old or whose age falls between 40 and 50
Word origin
[1830–40; ‹ L quadrāgēnāri(us) consisting of forty (quādrāgēn(ī) forty each + -ārius-ary) + -an]This word is first recorded in the period 1830–40. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: grid, isomerism, isometric, paraffin, showcase-an is a suffix occurring originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nounsdenoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan), and now productively forming English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.Attached to geographical names, it denotes provenance or membership (American; Chicagoan), the latter sense now extended to membership in social classes, religious denominations,etc., in adjectives formed from various kinds of noun bases (Episcopalian; pedestrian; Puritan; Republican) and membership in zoological taxa (acanthocephalan; crustacean). Attached to personal names, it has the additional senses “contemporary with” (Elizabethan; Jacobean) or “proponent of” (Hegelian; Freudian) the person specified by the noun base. It also occurs in a set of personal nouns,mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works withthe referent of the base noun (comedian; grammarian; historian; theologian)