Jump To:

• Old Guard
  Old Guard

  noun

  the imperial guard created in 1804 by Napoleon: it made the last French charge at Waterloo.
• old guard
  old guard

  noun

  a group that works for a long-established or old-fashioned cause or principle

Old Guard

American  

noun

1. the imperial guard created in 1804 by Napoleon: it made the last French charge at Waterloo.

2. (in the U.S.) the conservative element of any political party, especially the Republican Party.

3. (usually lowercase) the influential, established, more conservative members of any body, group, movement, etc..

   the old guard of New York society.

---

old guard ¹ British  

noun

1. a group that works for a long-established or old-fashioned cause or principle

2. the conservative element in a political party or other group

---

Old Guard ² British  

noun

1. the French imperial guard created by Napoleon in 1804

---

Etymology

Origin of Old Guard

Translation of French Vieille Garde

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Old Guard old guard

Netflix proved with "The Old Guard" they can make a decent Europudding action film.

From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2023

Two Old Guard platoon horses, Mickey and Tony, had to be euthanized within days of each other in February 2022.

From Seattle Times ● May 10, 2023

On July 2, 1937, the Old Guard took up sentinel duty, manning around-the-clock watch that continues to this day.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 9, 2021

Someone mentioned an elite Army unit known as the Old Guard, whose special duties include standing watch 24/7, year-round, at the famous tomb overlooking Washington, D.C.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2021

I began to buy, and while I was signing the first batch of tags the Old Guard came marching in from the eighteenth green.

From Fore! by Charles Emmett Van Loan

Yet in their rush to destroy the old guard, Weiss and Ellison have overlooked the fact that they left behind an elite corps of unemployed, highly motivated investigative journalists with nothing left to lose.

From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026

"We may have a new chairman, but the old guard is now worried about where the economy has moved since the beginning of the year," Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, told AFP.

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

The next generation's time will come, but it felt a sad way for the old guard to depart.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

The old guard held that the universe was eternal and unchanging, but in 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson discovered the faint background radiation left over from the cosmos’ earliest moments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

“The old guard despises me because I live and glean with a flair they sorely lack,” Goddard had told Rowan.

From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman