While the exact years that one enters middle age is uncertain, the spelling is very definite.

Middle age, a noun that means someone is about 40 to 65 years old, is two words (like ice cream) with no hyphen. For example: At the end of middle age, most people’s children have left home.

When using the word as an adjective – such as middle-aged – the hyphen appears, though. For example: Los Angeles has many middle-aged singles bars.

And with that, we can retire the issue of spelling of these two words for good.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.