museum piece

noun

1. something suitable for keeping and exhibiting in a museum.
2. something very old-fashioned or decrepit:

   That car he drives is a museum piece.

museum piece

noun

1. an object of sufficient age or interest to be kept in a museum
2. informal.
   a person or thing regarded as antiquated or decrepit

Word History and Origins

Origin of museum piece¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Idioms and Phrases

An elderly or old-fashioned item or person, as in When are you going to sell that museum piece of a car? or Aunt Jane comes from another era—she's a real museum piece . This expression originated about 1900 for an article valuable enough for museum display but began to be used disparagingly from about 1915.

Example Sentences

There, staff set to work, assessing the damage to the dilapidated vehicle and figuring out what it would take to transform it into a museum piece that would tell the story of a brief, unusual chapter in Alaskan history.

From Outside Online

Blues music is often treated like a museum piece, a relic from a bygone day, but this band will make you want to get up and dance.

From The Daily Beast

The car was a museum piece, and as Warble caromed into its cushions she felt that her lines had fallen in pleasant places.

From Project Gutenberg

It was an animal rug, a museum piece; rubies and sapphires and emeralds and topaz melted into wool.

From Project Gutenberg

Anything that would float was being used since the war began, though a coal-burning ship was almost a museum piece.

From Project Gutenberg

In the beginning the street had been preserved as a museum piece while the cartel city had grown up around it.

From Project Gutenberg

If it was a real Museum piece, we'd have a plate right there, with the name of the painter and the title.

From Project Gutenberg