Write Over Age Text For Free

?Age-old.? Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, .

In AP style, all ages are written as numerals. You would only hyphenate the age if it is an adjective. Therefore, the correct way to write the sentence would be: A 50-year-old man was walking in the garden.

If the age is used as an adjective or as a substitute for a noun, then it should be hyphenated. Don't use apostrophes when describing an age range. Examples: A 21-year-old student. The student is 21 years old.

Is ?Year Old? Hyphenated or Not? Hyphenate ?year old? if the phrase precedes a noun that it is modifying.

Use numerals for ages when more than two words would be needed to spell out the age (2.127): Born in 1922, Wallace will be 101 in October. The world's oldest tortoise is 190 years old. Use numerals for all numbers, including ages, in discussions where numbers appear frequently (2.128).

Just in case there's any confusion over what to do when a sentence starts with an age (as a noun or an adjective): Keep the hyphen but spell out the age. See more on ages as words versus numerals below. Sixty-five-year-old Harry Longbottom was cited for kicking his neighbor's trashcan down the street.

Summary. So to sum up, you hyphenate an age when it's a noun or when it's a modifier that comes before a noun. The main time you don't hyphenate an age is when it comes after the noun it modifies. Ages are like every other compound modifier that way: you hyphenate them before the noun but not after the noun.

A 17 year old (often written as 17-year-old) is a youngster who is 17 years old. In other words, ?17-year-old? is a compound noun referring to an individual who is 17 years old. And ?17 years old? is an adjectival phrase.