of age

of age

Being at the age of majority—that is, old enough by law to vote, marry, or sign legal agreements without one's parents. Typically refers to age 18, the age of majority in the United States. Just because you're of age doesn't mean you're suddenly versed in the ways of the world—you're still just a kid. Our parents don't approve of the marriage, but we're both of age now, so they can't stop us.
See also: age, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*of age

old enough to marry, buy alcohol, or to sign legal agreements. (*Typically: be ~; Come ~.) Now that Mary is of age, she can buy her own car. When I'm of age, I'm going to get married and move to the city.
See also: age, of
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

of age

1. Old enough, according to the law, to be eligible for something, as in In this state he's not of age for buying liquor, but he may vote, or Next year Jane's coming of age and will get her driver's license. This usage was first recorded about 1430. The term under age signifies being too young to be eligible, as in It's against the law to serve alcohol to anyone under age.
2. come of age. Mature or develop fully, as in The school's bilingual program has finally come of age.
See also: age, of
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • the big (number)-o
  • the big something-o
  • come of age
  • age, sex, from
  • sex
  • live to a ripe old age
  • a dog's age
  • dog's age
  • ASF
  • one age with (someone)
References in periodicals archive
In 2002, [approximately equal to]52 million girls <18 years of age were married.
Nearly 5 million of the 32 million Americans 65 years of age or older have some form of depression.
The youngest was 2 years of age and the oldest 14.9 years (mean: 8.7; median: 9; SD: [+ or -]4.0).
(2004) examined associations in premenarcheal girls who were a younger subset (0-8 years of age) during the exposure window in 1976.
By extending previous methods to model age as a time-dependent covariate, I show here that the stable age distribution over time is in fact better explained by an influence of age on risk for disease after infection.
For example, the normal retirement age could be "the later of Age 65 or 5 years of participation." When using a five-year minimum, however, one must use the same PV factor in each year for any participant entering the plan within five years of retirement.
One state that studied its success with applicants who were older found that consumers 45-54 years of age were more likely to have successful rehabilitation outcomes than those below age 20.
While one's chronological age is useful in determining eligibility for services, our greatest concern should be with capabilities or potential rather than with limitations set arbitrarily because of age (Blake, 1981).
note, in data from the Seveso Women's Health Study (SWHS) we found no change in age of onset of menarche associated with TCDD exposure in all women in the cohort or in women exposed before 8 years of age (Warner et al.
Three decades ago most reported case-patients in Thailand were 3-6 years of age (1).
Of those who lost their mother at birth only 1.65 percent survived until five years of age. Among children aged between one to five only 13 percent survived until five years of age.
The same rehabilitation services for the same conditions, however are often not available to persons over 60 years of age. (Becker & Kaufman 1988).
"We took mice that were six weeks, five months, and eighteen months of age, and exposed them to this pesticide mixture, and got marked effects, particularly in the oldest animals," says Cory-Slechta.
Since family limitation was being practiced in Iowa, the expectation based on the schedule of natural fertility does not eliminate the effect of age. Indeed, a nearly linear relationship between age and children-ever-born is curvilinear in the transformed index.
The daily rates of gastrointestinal illness increased by 0.44 events per 100,000 persons for every additional 10 years of age, the team reported.