ELDEST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does eldest mean? 

• ELDEST (noun)
  The noun ELDEST has 1 sense:

1. the offspring who came first in the order of birth

  Familiarity information: ELDEST used as a noun is very rare.

• ELDEST (adjective)
  The adjective ELDEST has 1 sense:

1. first in order of birth

  Familiarity information: ELDEST used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELDEST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The offspring who came first in the order of birth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

eldest; firstborn

Hypernyms ("eldest" is a kind of...):

issue; offspring; progeny (the immediate descendants of a person)

Derivation:

eldest (first in order of birth)

• ELDEST (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

First in order of birth

Synonyms:

eldest; firstborn

Context example:

the firstborn child

Similar:

first (preceding all others in time or space or degree)

Derivation:

eldest (the offspring who came first in the order of birth)

 Context examples 

His eldest son was careless and extravagant, and had already given him much uneasiness; but his other children promised him nothing but good.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They are likewise of special use to husbands and wives who are grown weary of their mates; to eldest sons, to great ministers of state, and often to princes.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Mrs. Gardiner, a stately old lady, greeted them kindly and handed them over to the eldest of her six daughters.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Is she the eldest?” I inquired.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Some people are surprized, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Even Frederick, my eldest son, you see, who will perhaps inherit as considerable a landed property as any private man in the county, has his profession.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing, which he had not been very much tempted to do.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

And when the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five altogether—Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)