Synonyms

old hat

American

adjective

old-fashioned; dated.
trite from having long been used or known.

old hat British

adjective

(postpositive) old-fashioned or trite

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

old hat Cultural

Obsolete, old-fashioned: “Get with it, Murray; your methods are strictly old hat.”

Etymology

Origin of old hat

First recorded in 1745–55

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

He stopped his team, jerked his battered old hat from his head, and waved it at me.

From Literature

“He was old hat, and Las Vegas was seen as the graveyard of the stars.”

From The Wall Street Journal

All-time highs have become old hat to a market that’s seen the S&P 5oo notch nearly three dozen record closes this year, and the catalysts are familiar too: trade and tech.

From Barron's

Maybe the headlines about looming shutdown deadlines feel like old hat, at this point.

From Slate

“Even though they were only a couple of years older than the Beatles, they were treated as old hat,” says Mazor.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023