Idiom
old school
Meaning
Preceded by the: a group of people characterized by being conservative or traditional; also, a method for accomplishing a task, a style, or a way of thinking that was employed in a former era, remembered either for its inferiority to the current method, or for its superiority over the new way.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“My grandfather is very old school about his manners.”
“He prefers using a paper map instead of a phone, which is a bit old school.”
“While the rest of the industry embraced digital automation, the firm remained proudly old school, insisting that every contract be signed by hand.”
Examples
simple
“My grandfather is very old school about his manners.”
contextual
“He prefers using a paper map instead of a phone, which is a bit old school.”
complex
“While the rest of the industry embraced digital automation, the firm remained proudly old school, insisting that every contract be signed by hand.”
Origin
The term is likely a shortening of *old school of thinking* or *old school of thought*. In this context, *school* derives from the sense of a body of followers adhering to a particular doctrine or way of thinking, rather than a physical institution for children. The adjective emerged as an attributive use of this noun phrase.
While the exact date of the idiom's first use is not recorded, it functions as a compound of *old* and *school*. The transition from a literal description of one's education to a metaphorical description of one's philosophy remains the prevailing explanation for the term's development.
Key words
Related idioms
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