Hoary

 WORD OF THE DAY

hoary / adjective / HOR-ee

Definition
1: gray or white with or as if with age
2a: extremely old
2b: ancient

Examples
"A brief hike … reveals long expanses of light gray sand, pounded by waves, backed by lofty coconut palms, hoary mangroves and wild forests…."
— Jeff McMahon, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2022

Many who voted for Mélenchon have no use for his broad-brushed and hoary anticapitalist nostrums.
— Arthur Goldhammer, The New Republic, 11 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
"How to save the old that's worth saving ... is one of our greatest problems." British novelist John Galsworthy knew the value of preserving the past—and he would likely have counted hoary among those old things worth saving.
The word is old indeed; it traces to an Old English adjective, hār, which appeared in Beowulf. That hoary ancestor evolved over time into hoar, a synonym of ancient.
Hoary developed from hoar more than 475 years ago, and since then it has been used for anything that is old or that has the whitened look of age (from the hoary bat to the hoary willow).
The venerable hoar also remains as a synonym of hoary and as a component of compounds such as hoarfrost.