Word.ws English Dictionary

come the old soldier

Syllables: come the old sold·ier/ˈkʌm ðiː‿əʊl(d)ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/US/ˈkʌm ði‿oʊl(d)ˈsoʊld͡ʒə/

come the old soldier verb: often followed by with: to deceive, impose upon, or take advantage of someone, as if exploiting one's superior age or experience.

Verb

come the old soldier (third-person singular simple present comes the old soldier, present participle coming the old soldier, simple past came the old soldier, past participle come the old soldier)

  1. (idiomatic, informal, intransitive) Often followed by with: to deceive, impose upon, or take advantage of someone, as if exploiting one's superior age or experience.
    • Don’t come the old soldier with me, sunshine! Do you think I was born yesterday?
    • [W]ere it not that I think he has scarce the impudence to propose such a thing to succeed, curse me but I should think he was coming the old soldier over me, and keeping up his game.1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], “Fortune’s Frolics”, in St Ronan’s Well. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London...
    Synonyms:
    act the old soldier, play the old soldier

Synonyms of come the old soldier

  • act the old soldier
  • play the old soldier

Forms of come the old soldier

third-person singular presentcomes the old soldier
present participlecoming the old soldier
pastcame the old soldier
past participlecome the old soldier

Origin of come the old soldier

From come (“to behave in the manner of; to pretend to be”) + the + old soldier (“former soldier, or one who has served for a long time; one with a lot of experience in something”), in the sense of one taking advantage of their age or experience over someone else.

Questions about come the old soldier

What does come the old soldier mean?
Come the old soldier means often followed by with: to deceive, impose upon, or take advantage of someone, as if exploiting one's superior age or experience.
What part of speech is come the old soldier?
Come the old soldier is a verb.
How do you pronounce come the old soldier?
Come the old soldier is pronounced /ˈkʌm ðiː‿əʊl(d)ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of come the old soldier?
The past tense of come the old soldier is came the old soldier.

Words near come the old soldier in the dictionary

  1. come running
  2. come short
  3. come stà
  4. come the acid
  5. come the old acid
  6. come the old soldier
  7. come the raw prawn
  8. come thick and fast
  9. come through
  10. come to
  11. come to a boil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come the old soldier (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-come the old soldier.wav.

Cite this entry: “come the old soldier.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_the_old_soldier. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.