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

Phil Mendelson, chairman since 2012, is like an old shoe: familiar, agreeably unpretentious and occasionally irritating when he won’t bend when he should.

From Washington Post • May 27, 2022

“When you can point to your floor and say it came from an old shoe factory in Connecticut, for example, that’s a big attraction,” he says.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 1, 2019

Hazel unwrapped the paper to reveal an old shoe box.

From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu