old chestnut
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
An old, familiar, and often repeated joke or story
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Một trò đùa hoặc câu chuyện cũ, quen thuộc và thường được lặp lại
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: an old chestnut
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The comedian told the same old chestnut about marriage that I've heard before
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “old chestnut” mean?
An old, familiar, and often repeated joke or story Literally: an old chestnut
Is “old chestnut” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.