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What do you call two people with the same age? I'm not looking for age range or age group.

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Can you supply some context, please? What is wrong with "They are the same age"? – Matt Эллен Feb 8 '12 at 20:25
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There's nothing wrong. Fond of finding a word if it exists in English! – Manoochehr Feb 8 '12 at 20:28
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As written, this question doesn't meet our guidelines for single word requests. Voting to close. – JSBձոգչ Feb 8 '12 at 20:38
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@JSBᾶngs: I don't understand either your comment or the two upvotes for it. In what way is this question badly posed? – FumbleFingers Feb 8 '12 at 22:11
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...anyway, if nothing else I've been goaded to find an answer for OP. – FumbleFingers Feb 8 '12 at 22:47
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closed as not constructive by JSBձոգչ, Matt Эллен, Robusto, simchona♦, Alenanno Feb 11 '12 at 0:31

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8 Answers

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Generally we Americans, if we have need to refer to some such group, will either say people the same age, or, in some contexts, refer to The Class of 1960, referring to high school or college graduation year. Demographers sometimes refer to people born the same year as (for example) the Cohort of 1942. I happen to be a member of both of these groups.

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up vote 9 down vote

You can say that are coevals:

coeval, /kəʊˈiːv(ə)l/ adj. : of the same or equal age, antiquity, or duration

Two interesting neologisms (found here) that mean "born on the same day" are eventsake or bornsake.

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Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (pub. 1766) was one of the most popular works of its day. It refers to the short continuance of friendship amongst the vicious, which is coeval only with mutual satisfaction. It means "existing concurrently", rather than "starting at the same time". – FumbleFingers Feb 8 '12 at 22:06
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@FumbleFingers The OP is actually only asking for the same age; I'm the one who narrowed it to the same birthdate. (And coeval sounds too much like partner in evil for me to be entirely comfortable with it...) – Gnawme Feb 8 '12 at 22:31
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haha - I don't like it because it just makes me think of primeval coelacanths – FumbleFingers Feb 8 '12 at 22:54
I suggest you visit COCA, enter coeval in the search box, and look at the usage examples. I think you'll find that coeval works for all but very informal writing. – Gnawme Feb 9 '12 at 17:39
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@FeralOink I hear it (and decode the IPA) as co-eeeeeevil. – Gnawme Feb 9 '12 at 18:44
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up vote 4 down vote

You can call them age-mates:

age-mate noun one who is of about the same age as another

It's very well attested, and what's more, even someone who's not already familiar with it will likely understand it, since mate is used this way in many other compounds (classmate, schoolmate; roommate, housemate; etc.).

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+1 I think, it is the most exact answer. – Gangnus Feb 9 '12 at 21:35
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James Chandler strikes me as a competent writer and sociopolitical literary critic. In his 1999 book England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism he writes...

...Shelley's poem seems to depend on a strong sense that the new birth of literature in his time goes hand-in-hand with the conascent monstrosity of Modern Criticism. (link to Google Books excerpt)

I'm aware that some "neo-mystic" promoters of Eastern philosophy have their own very different (and very obscure) definition for this word, but it's clear to me Chandler is using it in the most accessible sense (born/starting at the same time). Here are a few more supporting instances.

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up vote 3 down vote

I have found "contemporary".

Citation from here:

  1. existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.
  2. of about the same age or date: a Georgian table with a contemporary wig stand.
  3. of the present time; modern: a lecture on the contemporary novel.

Contemporary often refers to persons or their acts or achievements: Hemingway and Fitzgerald, though contemporary, shared few values

But I don't feel it OK.

Citation from the same source:

Coeval refers either to very long periods of time—an era or an eon—or to remote or long ago times: coeval stars, shining for millenia with equal brilliance; coeval with the dawning of civilization. So, it doesn't fit.

In Russian I know 3 words of the demanded meaning. But not in English.

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coeval or comtemporary do not mean the same age, but living in the same time, and from your examples coeval does not refer to persons – Theta30 Feb 9 '12 at 17:28
Yes. Coeval doesn't fit, I have put it here as an argument against another answer. – Gangnus Feb 9 '12 at 19:25
look the edited answer, paragraph 2. – Gangnus Feb 9 '12 at 19:28
Sorry, that is not reflected by your answer. "a Georgian table is" an immaterial thing. While contemporary is applied to persons, it does not mean of the same age. There was a 3 year difference between the age of Hemingway (b.1899) and the age of Fitzgerald (b.1896). – Theta30 Feb 9 '12 at 21:18
So what? People about the same age, could be OK, too. When speaking not of children, +-5 years mean nothing. In greater age, +-10 mean nothing. But I said, I don't like it, too. "Age-mate" is the most exact answer, I think. But "coneval" will win. – Gangnus Feb 9 '12 at 21:32
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up vote 2 down vote

I'd call them isochrones, repurposing the word which is used to describe a type of curve derived from the prefix iso and suffix chrone, to denote the same time period.

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up vote 1 down vote

One example of two people who are the same age is twins

twin noun - either of two children or animals brought forth at a birth.

Since they are born together, they have the almost the same age. Not exactly the same, as Robusto correctly points out, since one will exit the womb first. This is as close to the same age as I think one can reasonably get.

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In order for that to be true, both would have to come out of the birth canal together. Even in twins, one sibling is always older than the other. – Robusto Feb 8 '12 at 21:17
@Robusto - you make a very good point. I will update my answer. – Matt Эллен Feb 8 '12 at 21:20
There's some 134,000,000 people born each year, which is around 261 per minute or four per second. I think it's safe to say these 261 born around the world are the same age and are (mostly) not twins to each other. – Hugo Feb 8 '12 at 21:40
But, @Hugo, can you be sure they are born at exactly the same time? What is the term for such people, born at the same time, but not of the same mother? – Matt Эллен Feb 8 '12 at 21:44
There remains the case of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins – Stephen Feb 9 '12 at 19:35
up vote 0 down vote

The term peers can be used for people of the same age, but it is not restricted to this sense, as it also means people of the same status or abilities. With the suitable context, however, it can refer to the age only, as in: Teenagers want to be accepted by their peers.

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@JasperLoy: True. But it was the closest one I could think of. – Irene Feb 8 '12 at 20:44
To me, the "core" meaning of a peer group is that they are of equal status. It only comes to signify equal age in developmental/educational contexts where being the same age means you've reached the same level in schooling, for example. I don't expect to hear peer used of older people, or without group, with the sense of "equal in age". – FumbleFingers Feb 8 '12 at 23:09
I agree with @JasperLoy But I also am having trouble with this question, without additional context! – Feral Oink Feb 9 '12 at 18:23

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