Idiom
old as Methuselah
Meaning
Extremely old; ancient.
Examples
“That tractor is as old as Methuselah but it still runs.”
“This library book feels old as Methuselah and the pages are turning yellow.”
“He kept a laptop as old as Methuselah, insisting it worked fine long after the software stopped supporting it.”
“My grandfather refuses to buy a new coat, even though the one he wears looks old as Methuselah and has holes in the pockets.”
“The firm was run on procedures as old as Methuselah, ledgers kept by hand and memos typed on a machine that no repair shop in the city could still service.”
Examples
simple
“That tractor is as old as Methuselah but it still runs.”
“This library book feels old as Methuselah and the pages are turning yellow.”
contextual
“He kept a laptop as old as Methuselah, insisting it worked fine long after the software stopped supporting it.”
“My grandfather refuses to buy a new coat, even though the one he wears looks old as Methuselah and has holes in the pockets.”
complex
“The firm was run on procedures as old as Methuselah, ledgers kept by hand and memos typed on a machine that no repair shop in the city could still service.”
Origin
Methuselah appears in the genealogy of Genesis 5, where verse 27 records that he lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years — the longest lifespan given to anyone in the Bible, and grandfather to Noah.
The enormous number, whatever it originally meant to the compilers of these lists, made the name a natural yardstick for great age, and it passed into everyday speech long before anyone worried about the arithmetic.
To be as old as Methuselah in English simply means to be very old indeed, the comparison doing the exaggerating so the speaker doesn't have to.
Stories
The Patriarchs & the Flood · See all Biblical origin
Genesis after Eden: Noah and the flood, Babel, Sodom, and the patriarchs.
two by two — In pairs, one alongside another.
Tower of Babel — A grand, over-ambitious project that collapses into confusion and a breakdown in communication.
Sodom and Gomorrah — A place or scene of extreme wickedness, vice, and moral ruin.
a pillar of salt — The fate of someone who cannot stop looking back at the past instead of moving forward.
Jacob's ladder — A link between the earthly and the heavenly, or by extension a long, steep climb.
a coat of many colors — A conspicuous mark of favouritism that stirs up envy in others.
- Level
- C1 · Advanced
- Updated