old shoe

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a person or thing that is comfortably familiar and unpretentious.

   Uncle Will is a lovable old shoe.

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old shoe Idioms  

1. see comfortable as an old shoe.

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Other Word Forms

• old-shoe adjective

Example Sentences

My knife also became something of a conversation piece—friends I cooked for wanted to try it, drawing it from its homemade cover, crafted from old shoe boxes.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 23, 2025

It was a grind that gave way to a routine as comfortable as an old shoe.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 25, 2025

“It was like putting on an old shoe, a shoe so old the laces were gone,” Burrows jokes.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 11, 2023

For Neill, playing Grant was like putting on an old shoe: “It’s comfortable and I know exactly what to do with the shoe.”

From Washington Post • Jun. 10, 2022

He was thin and blotchy, and his nose was scuffed up like an old shoe.

From "Flush" by Carl Hiaasen