old stager
- noun
- UK
- During the meeting, the old stager shared stories from her decades of service in education.
Examples
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As an old stager in the industry, he was often consulted for his valuable insights.
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The team relied on the old stager's experience to navigate the challenging project.
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Mainly old stagers there, I hear.
Synonyms
A person with long experience in a job or activity
A person who has done something for a long time and is respected for their experience
A person with many years of experience in a job or field
An experienced reliable person who has worked in a job for a long time
A person who has done a job or activity for many years and knows it well
A person with a lot of experience in a job or activity
A person very skilled at something after many years of practice
An experienced person who uses skill and tricks to gain an advantage
A person who has done a job for many years and knows it well
Antonyms
How Experienced
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'old' (long-established/experienced) modifies 'stager' (a seasoned veteran), yielding 'a person with long experience' without any idiomatic shift. This adjectival modification follows a straightforward, cross-linguistic pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun old stager may come from theatre, where a stager was someone who had been on the stage many times. Because they had so much practice and stayed calm in difficult situations, the phrase came to mean 'someone with a lot of experience'.