old guard

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old guard

also Old Guard

A conservative, often reactionary element of a class, society, or political group.

[Translation of French Vieille Garde, the imperial guard of Napoleon I.]

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 guard

1. a group that works for a long-established or old-fashioned cause or principle

2. the conservative element in a political party or other group

[C19: from Old Guard]

Old Guard

(Historical Terms) the French imperial guard created by Napoleon in 1804

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

Old′ Guard′

1. the imperial guard created in 1804 by Napoleon.

2. (sometimes l.c.) the conservative members of a political party or other group.

[translation of French Vieille Garde]

Old′ Guard′ism, n.

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Noun

old guard - a faction that is unwilling to accept new ideas

faction, sect - a dissenting clique

old guard

noun traditionalists, conservatives, reactionaries He belongs to the Nationalist Party's old guard.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

old guard

n the old guard → la vecchia guardia

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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A regiment of the Old Guard, reviewed on a summer's day in the Champs Elysees, could not have made a more critically correct appearance.

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Billy Murphy, and Joe Lloyd, and all the survivors of the old guard, got around me and their arms around me.

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He was an old guard, and he came: and I passed your sword through his left thigh."

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Tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed interest in his narrations that the old guard rubbed up his memory, and launched out into a graphic history of all the performances of the boys on the roads for the last twenty years.

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So James went to Harrow House with much the same emotions that the Old Guard must have felt on their way up the hill at Waterloo.

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Daylight's one of the old guard, one of the real sour-doughs.

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Vail arrived very much as Blucher did at the battle of Waterloo--a trifle late, but in time to prevent the telephone forces from being routed by the Old Guard of the Western Union.

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Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform, which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too tight.

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NAB's hammer has fallen on the old guard - those who have been the faces of Pakistan's political circus for decades: Zardari, Nawaz, Shehbaz, Dar, Hamza.

No country for old men

But as a group of breakaway House of Abundance children strike out on their own with a new house, how will the old guard respond?

tv highlights

However, even on his Ascot run he's far from certain to beat Old Guard, who gave him 6lb that day, and it might be that Harry Fry has his eye on bigger prizes with If The Cap Fits.

Progressive Ballymoy can bounce back with National Spirit success

Hardy perennial Old Guard bids to follow up his victory in this race last year, and the remarkable Lil Rockerfeller is also back to see if he can regain the title he won in 2016.