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Is there a word which means one who prefers older ways?

English Language & Usage Asked by Davo on August 9, 2021

Is there a word which means one who prefers older ways?

I don’t mean a Luddite or a technophobe, or a misoneist, or a neophobe. Not any fear of the new, but rather one who, given no perceived benefit of doing something the new way, prefers an old way.

Examples:

Even where the new lanes have been added, traffic permitting, John prefers to make lane changes to conform with where the older lanes used to take him; he’s rather ________ in that behavior.

Mary is quite the ________, preferring to use a manual pencil sharpener to an electric one.

5 Answers

Mill-horse

And what a couple of old patriarchs shall we become, going in the mill-horse round; getting sons and daughters; providing nurses for them first, governors and governesses next; teaching them lessons their fathers never practised, nor which their mother, as her parents will say, was much the better for!
Clarissa Harlowe

.

Roland is a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel of office. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

.

But I had achieved a frigate and a Princess, and that was not so bad for a beginning, and more than enough to show off with before those dull unadventurous folk who continued on their mill-horse round at home.
Dream Days

All examples lifted from Wordnik - https://www.wordnik.com/words/mill-horse

Correct answer by Phil Sweet on August 9, 2021

Perhaps fuddy-duddy would work? It's what I thought of immediately on reading your question.

Fuddy-Duddy

NOUN

informal
A person who is old-fashioned and fussy.
‘he probably thinks I'm an old fuddy-duddy’

Answered by Roger Sinasohn on August 9, 2021

I think you could use traditionalist for both your examples. From Oxford Dictionaries:

NOUN
An advocate of maintaining tradition, especially so as to resist change.

ADJECTIVE
Advocating the upholding or maintenance of tradition.

So

Even where the new lanes have been added, traffic permitting, John prefers to make lane changes to conform with where the older lanes used to take him; he's rather traditional(ist) in that behavior.

Mary is quite the traditionalist, preferring to use a manual pencil sharpener to an electric one.

Your first example seems rather extreme (what if a fast-moving vehicle comes up behind John while he's straddling the new lanes?), so you might prefer a stronger adjective there, like hidebound:

Unwilling or unable to change because of tradition or convention.

Answered by 1006a on August 9, 2021

atavistic

at·a·vis·tic

/ˌadəˈvistik/

adjective

relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral. “atavistic fears and instincts”

Answered by Shelby Moore III on August 9, 2021

troglodyte

(especially in prehistoric times) a person who lived in a cave. a hermit. a person who is regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.

And its synonyms such as:

fogey

a person, typically an old one, who is considered to be old-fashioned or conservative in attitude or tastes.

antediluvian

of or belonging to the time before the biblical Flood.

HUMOROUS: ridiculously old-fashioned.

Answered by Shelby Moore III on August 9, 2021

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