grand old man

noun

: a venerated practitioner or former practitioner of an art, profession, or sport
the grand old man of jazz

Examples of grand old man in a Sentence

the grand old man of the American theater
Recent Examples on the Web Advertisement In the city of L.A. itself, the grand old man of adobes is the Avila Adobe, built in 1818 by Francisco Avila, once mayor of the city. Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2024 My family had rented an Airbnb, and sitting on the small stove was that grand old man of stovetop coffee: the Mokapot. Noah Kaufman, Bon Appétit, 11 Mar. 2024 Just a kid against Enzo's grand old man. Elana Scherr, Car and Driver, 5 Dec. 2022 By his side, Caracas finds a grand old man, a novelist who wanders with him into the depths of the Neapolitan underworld. Nick Vivarelli, Variety, 13 Feb. 2023 Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, the grand old man of Dutch physics, who had anticipated much of the development of special relativity two decades earlier and whom Einstein himself held in the highest regard. Adam Becker, Scientific American, 22 Nov. 2022 The good news is that Pacifiction, the latest feature from Catalan auteur Albert Serra, who’s only in his 40s but directs like a grand old man of the 1960s avant-garde, is quite watchable, even sort of plot-driven — for a Serra film. Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 May 2022 Three new biographical works suggest something of the pitfalls that beset anyone attempting to get the grand old man of British Romanticism down on paper. Kathryn Hughes, The New York Review of Books, 24 Sep. 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'grand old man.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1838, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of grand old man was in 1838

Dictionary Entries Near grand old man

Cite this Entry

“Grand old man.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grand%20old%20man. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

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