wieku

Wieku is the genitive singular form of the Polish noun wiek, which has several related meanings centered on time. The core senses are age (the length of a person’s life) and a broader span of time such as an era or epoch. In everyday use, wiek often appears in phrases that describe age, as in references to a person’s stage of life. The common construction w wieku means “at the age of” or “in the age of.” For example, w wieku dwudziestu lat signals being twenty years old, while od wieków (for ages/since long ago) expresses a long-standing duration.

Grammatically, wiek appears in various forms across cases and numbers. The form wieku is the genitive singular (and also the locative singular in certain contexts) used after prepositions or numbers to express age or a point in time. The plural wieki designates multiple ages or eras, and wieków is the genitive plural used in phrases like od wieków or przez wieki.

Etymology and cognates: wiek comes from Proto-Slavic *věkъ and has cognates in other Slavic languages, such as Russian vek, Ukrainian vік, and Czech věk, reflecting a shared older concept of time, life, or era.

Usage notes: In modern Polish, wiek is commonly replaced by specific terms when referring to particular historical periods (epoka, era, okres) or by structural phrases that name a person’s age directly. wiek remains a versatile, general term for time spans and for the notion of age in various contexts.

See also: age, era, epoch, century.