moldy fig

noun

, Slang.

1. a musician or fan who likes traditional jazz or Dixieland rather than modern jazz.
2. any person or thing that is old-fashioned or conservative.

Other Words From

• moldy-fig adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of moldy fig¹

An Americanism dating back to 1945–50

Example Sentences

John Cheever lamented that he sounded like a moldy fig, and Ernest Hemingway was disappointed “because his voice was a light tenor,” Ms. Mantell said, “and didn’t jibe at all with the rough, raucous, macho image he wanted to project.”

From Washington Post

Together, they tear the moldy fig leaf off a Hollywood staple, the Arthurian-style romance — with its chivalric code, knightly virtues and courtly manners — to reveal a mercenary, transactional world of men, women and power.

From New York Times

He had a particular love for old-school New Orleans jazz, which, in accordance with the Moldy Fig philosophy of the nineteen-forties and fifties, he held to be superior to later varieties.

From The New Yorker

The axe-wielding fantasy has endured because it’s funny and a good story, but it also makes Seeger seem like a moldy fig, the haggard dad screaming, “Turn it down!”—while in reality he was anything but.

From Slate

One shows a familiar face: that of the usher himself, the playwright-director-actor Rome Neal, currently playing Thelonious Monk in a one-man show at the Moldy Fig, a jazz club a few blocks away.

From New York Times