Aged, old, elderly and superannuated when applied to persons mean far advanced in years.
Aged implies extreme old age with signs of feebleness or, sometimes, senility.
- the aged creature came, shuffling along with ivoryheaded wand
—Keats
Old stresses the years of one’s life, but in itself carries no connotations of marked decline.
- a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered
—Shak.
Elderly may imply no more than that the prime of life has been passed.
- when you see me again I shall be an old man—that was a slip, I meant to say elderly
—J. R. Loweliy
Superannuated indicates that one has been retired or pensioned because of having reached a certain age.
- varying in different callings
- superannuated teachers
- superannuated judges
Sometimes the word implies merely that one has passed the years of usefulness and with this denotation it is applied to things as well as to persons.