Word.ws English Dictionary

old-line

old-line adjective: reactionary or conservative.

Adjective

old-line (comparative more old-line, superlative most old-line)

  1. Reactionary or conservative.
    • I am deliberately convinced that Mr. Filmore has not the least chance of success, and that if it be at all possible to defeat Fremont, the Democratic party, with their candidates Buchanan and Breckinridge, with the aid of the Union-loving Old-line Whigs, is the only party which has the least chance...1856, James B. Clay, “Speech of James B. Clay Delivered at the Union Meeting in Mason County, Kentucky”, in Old Line Whigs for Buchanan & Breckinridge, page 15
  2. Long-established.
    • One of the old line insurance companies said to me recently, that they never made anything out of their underwriting business, but made their profit out of the investments of the reserved fund1908, T.D. O'Brien, “Mutual Insurance”, in Farm Implements, page 37
    • Gay alcoholism in the Boston area has come out of its closet. Here and across the nation increasing numbers of us are working for the time when gay alcoholics will no longer be subjected to the discrimination and indignities that characterized old-line treatment programs until now.1979 December 8, Dick Bowring, quoting Robert Connolly, “HATS Helps Gay Alcoholics”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 20, page 12

Forms of old-line

comparativemore old-line
superlativemost old-line

Origin of old-line

From old + line (“stated positions of a political or religious group”). Attested from the 19th century, originally in the United States.

Questions about old-line

What does old-line mean?
Old-line means reactionary or conservative.
What part of speech is old-line?
Old-line is an adjective.

Words near old-line in the dictionary

  1. old-field colts
  2. old-growth
  3. old-growth forest
  4. old-growth forests
  5. old-hat
  6. old-line
  7. old-maidenism
  8. old-maidhood
  9. old-maidish
  10. old-maidism
  11. old-maidisms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: old-line (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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Cite this entry: “old-line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old-line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.