longstanding
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of longstanding
Explanation
Anything longstanding has been around for a long time. If it's a longstanding tradition for your school's senior class to play a prank, that means it was even going on back when your grandfather's class let hundreds of crickets loose in the halls. Humans keeping cats as pets is a longstanding custom, and the habit of cooking food before eating it is also longstanding. You can call yourself a longstanding customer of your town's last remaining video store if you've been going there for years, or a longstanding fan of your favorite tennis player if you've followed her entire career. The adjective longstanding has been around since the early 1800s, so it's longstanding too.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Well, thank God the Dodgers broke baseball’s longstanding tradition of segregation long before Roberts, who is Black and Japanese American, was born!
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
Costco, for example, provides a surprisingly good savings formula for its hourly workers, offering longstanding employees 9% of their eligible salary as a nonelective contribution.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Friedkin’s movie shifted people’s perceptions about fear and played with longstanding ideas about the nuclear family and religious ideology, themes that were starting to be contested and debated as America moved further from ’50s-era sterility.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
He also said he saw "no reason" to change Germany's laws on surrogate pregnancy or alter the CDU's longstanding opposition.
From Barron's ● Jul. 18, 2026
I own as I do not, although I stake a claim on a pretty decent fashion sense, on account of my longstanding friendship with a certain party by the name of Joe Bunch.
From "The Misfits" by James Howe
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
