Word.ws English Dictionary

put new wine in old bottles

put new wine in old bottles verb: to introduce a new idea, method, or innovation into an established, outdated or inflexible system or organization.

Verb

put new wine in old bottles (third-person singular simple present puts new wine in old bottles, present participle putting new wine in old bottles, simple past and past participle put new wine in old bottles)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To introduce a new idea, method, or innovation into an established, outdated or inflexible system or organization.

Forms of put new wine in old bottles

third-person singular presentputs new wine in old bottles
present participleputting new wine in old bottles
past participleput new wine in old bottles
pastput new wine in old bottles

Origin of put new wine in old bottles

From new wine in an old bottle.

Questions about put new wine in old bottles

What does put new wine in old bottles mean?
Put new wine in old bottles means to introduce a new idea, method, or innovation into an established, outdated or inflexible system or organization.
What part of speech is put new wine in old bottles?
Put new wine in old bottles is a verb.
What is the past tense of put new wine in old bottles?
The past tense of put new wine in old bottles is put new wine in old bottles.

Words near put new wine in old bottles in the dictionary

  1. put it past
  2. put it there
  3. put it to
  4. put lie to
  5. put lipstick on a pig
  6. put new wine in old bottles
  7. put off
  8. put on
  9. put on a brave face
  10. put on a bus
  11. put on a clinic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put new wine in old bottles (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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