ye olde

English[edit]

From Middle English ye olde, a spelling variant of þe olde (literally “the old”).

Faux-archaic form of the old.
I'm not wasting my time going to lectures given by ye olde professor Jones.

Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe
- 1955, Joyce Cary, Not Honour More, New Directions Publishing, →ISBN, page 98:
  All this time waiting at door. At last young fellow in a white jacket condescended to answer my bell—and asked me to wait some more in the porch. But I didn't see it and walked into ye olde tyme lounge hall, panelled in Elizabethan linen-fold oak made out of chewed paper painted olde shitte colour.
- 2012, Richard Marcinko, Seal Force Alpha, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:
  Judging from the panicked look and white pallor on Pinky's face, I'd just put him between ye olde rock and ye olde harde place. Not my problem.
- 2024 April 27, Michael Hogan, “Did five frightened horses bolting through London really mean the end was neigh?”, in The Observer‎^[1], →ISSN:
  The saga of the fugitive nags gripped the nation. All day, #horses was a trending topic on social media, as if this was ye olde days.
Pseudo-archaic, pertaining to a historically inaccurate invocation of pre-modern times.

Jocularly added as an adjective to modern nouns to indicate that something is either outmoded or comfortably old fashioned. See ye (“the”) for more on how the spelling arose.