old school

A group that adheres to traditional ideas or practices: a diplomat of the old school.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

old school

1. chiefly Brit a school formerly attended by a person

2. a group of people favouring traditional ideas or conservative practices

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

old′ school`

advocates or supporters of established custom or of conservatism.

[1790–1800]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

old school - a class of people favoring traditional ideas

social class, socio-economic class, stratum, class - people having the same social, economic, or educational status; "the working class"; "an emerging professional class"

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Then don't object to me cracking up the old School house, Rugby.

View in context

To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school, accepting--he who had looked into the very heart of the lightnings--the dogmas of papal infallibility, of absolution, of confession--of relics great and small.

View in context

The marshal of the province in whose hands the law had placed the control of so many important public functions--the guardianship of wards (the very department which was giving Levin so much trouble just now), the disposal of large sums subscribed by the nobility of the province, the high schools, female, male, and military, and popular instruction on the new model, and finally, the district council--the marshal of the province, Snetkov, was a nobleman of the old school,--dissipating an immense fortune, a good-hearted man, honest after his own fashion, but utterly without any comprehension of the needs of modern days.

View in context

Riley spoke of such acquaintances kindly as "people of the old school."

View in context

One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to Tercanbury and see his old school. He had not been there since the day when, with relief in his heart, he had left it with the feeling that thenceforward he was his own master.

View in context

I wish all the girls would leave, and spoil his old school. It's perfectly maddening to think of those lovely limes," sighed Amy, with the air of a martyr.

View in context

"The Prince," she said, "is an intriguer of the old school. I know that in Vienna he has more than once made use of more violent means than he would dare to do here.

View in context

(Peter, aside, in a gratified pig's whisper: "I never was called 'Mr.' before.") Miss Felicity King's essays on Shakespeare is none the worse for being an old school composition, as it is new to most of our readers.

View in context

Cobb, who, it is needless to say, was distinctly of the old school in medicine.

View in context

"You'll be back again next winter, but I suppose I've left the dear old school forever-- if I have good luck, that is."

View in context

But by degrees the suffering faded out of his memory and he looked upon his old school with kindly eyes, and called it no longer Slaughterhouse, but Grey Friars, in his books.

View in context

On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school companion, Henry Jekyll.

View in context