(ed)  [f. the prec. n.] 

    1. intr. To grow old; to become aged.
 
  1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XV. lxxiii. (1495) 516 Other men there ben in Inde that lyue ful longe and aegen neuer. 1440 Promp. Parv., Agyn, or growyn agyd, Seneo, senesco. 1530 PALSGR. 418/2 Thought maketh men age a pace. 1673 GREW Anat. Plants II. I. ii. §2 (1682) 61 The other [skin] Postnate, succeeding in the room of the former, as the Root ageth. 1833 PRAED Poems (1865) I. 405 Queen Mab is ageing very fast. 1861 PEARSON Early & Mid. Ages Eng. 393 He [Henry II] stooped slightly and grew fat and gouty as he aged.
 

    2. trans. To make old, to cause to grow old.
 
  1636 EARL OF MANCHESTER Contempl. Mort. 182 A man might age himselfe in it, and sooner grow old than weary. 1839 BAILEY Festus (ed. 3) 12/2 Grief hallows hearts even while it ages heads. 1856 KANE Arct. Explor. I. xv. 173 An Arctic night and an Arctic day age a man more rapidly and harshly than a year anywhere else.
 

    3. Calico-printing. To fix the mordants and printed colours in (cloth, etc.) by the process of ageing. Also intr., to undergo this process. So aged ppl. a.
 
  1849 [see AGEING vbl. n. 2]. 1862 C. O'NEILL Dict. Calico Printing 8/1 The difference of appearance will be..in favour of the aged or exposed part. 1890 W. J. GORDON Foundry 177 The calico..has to be dried and aged. 1910 E. KNECHT et al. Man. Dyeing (ed. 2) II. 649 The dyeing of aged blacks. 1912 KNECHT & FOTHERGILL Textile Printing 138 If they [sc. the goods] are simply printed in aluminium mordants, one day may be quite sufficient to fully ‘age’ them. Ibid. 141 It is preferable to let them ‘age’ for a day or two in pile before dyeing.
 

    4. trans. To mature by keeping in storage, by exposing to the air, etc.
 
  1852 SWINDELLS & NICHOLSON Brit. Pat. 390 1 For oxydating metallic solutions, and for ageing and raising various colouring matters. 1854 W. E. STAITE Brit. Pat. 468 2 Madder which, technically speaking, has not been ‘aged’.
 

    5. To calculate or determine the age of (something), esp. scientifically; to assign an age to. Cf. DATE v. 2e.
 
  1887 M. H. HAYES Soundness & Age of Horses vi. 94 If a colonial animal in, say, September showed the condition of mouth just described, we should age him as five years old. 1954 Vermont Life Spring 49 The forester is able to age trees by studying the growth rings or annuli. 1970 Nature 23 May 692/1 These dykes have been radiogenically aged at 2,420 million years. 1971 Country Life 24 June 1577/1 (caption) Ageing a section of a tree.
 

    6. intr. Of iron, the iron core of an electrical transformer: to suffer a continuously increased loss in hysteretic quality.
 
  1896 [implied in AGEING vbl. n. 4]. 1899 S. R. ROGET in Proc. R. Soc. 23 Jan. 154 Brands of transformer steel, which are practically ‘non-ageing’. 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 121/1 Brands of steel are now obtainable which do not age in this manner.