old chestnut

Idioms and Phrases

A stale joke, story, or saying, as in Dad keeps on telling that old chestnut about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb . This expression comes from William Dimond's play, The Broken Sword (1816), in which one character keeps repeating the same stories, one of them about a cork tree, and is interrupted each time by another character who says “Chestnut, you mean . . . I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times and I am sure it was a chestnut.”

Example Sentences

Wilson told me about an old chestnut that’s often repeated in the genealogy community: “All people die twice. The first time is when their heart stops beating. The second time is when people forget about them.”

From Slate

Not that old chestnut again...

From BBC

It wasn’t; it was a hoary old chestnut that had already proved its inadequacy.

From Los Angeles Times

There’s “a lot going on there,” as people say, which perhaps explains why there’s been relatively little attention on this old chestnut of a take by Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and Republican megadonor who has been a mentor figure to Vance for years.

From Slate

Consider the old chestnut, “All Greeks are mortal, Socrates is Greek, therefore Socrates is mortal.”

From Salon

Related Words

• episode
• gag
• narration
• narrative
• reminiscence
• short story
• sketch
• tale
• tall tale
• yarn