EN
From feudal relations to grandfather. What the word ‘senior’ means and what is its expressive stability? This article focuses on a change in the meaning of the word senior in the context of demographic changes in Eastern Europe: Towards the end of the last century the avarage life expectancy of an European gradually extended and as a result, the number of older people in the community rose. This led to the need of finding a neutral way of calling the elderly. In Polish there had not been such a word previously: elderly people were named (and sometimes still are) after the fact they do not work (emeryt – a retired person), after the role they fulfill in the family (babcia, dziadek – grandma and grandpa), or after the way they lack something (niemłody – about a person who is not young anymore). The first part of the article summarizes the demographic revolution, which has been taking place since the end of the 19th century. In the following part the author describes the ways in which elderly people and old age are described in the Polish language. In the third part she analyzes the dictionary definitions of the word senior (since the year 1807) to conclude that neither of those definitions captures the new meaning of it. Finally she creates a new definition (or even definitions) of the word senior by using the gathered language material and graphical material and by checking in what context the word is used and which derivatives it creates. Author analyses the emotionals marking and expressive stability of the word.