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An elderly man
Answer for the clue "An elderly man ", 8 letters:
mossback
Alternative clues for the word mossback
Word definitions for mossback in dictionaries
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"conservative," 1874, especially of poor whites from Carolina, originally (1872) in reference to those who hid out to avoid service in the Confederate army (and would have stayed out till the moss grew on their backs); from moss + back (n.).
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mossback \Moss"back`\, n. A veteran partisan; one who is so conservative in opinion that he may be likened to a stone or old tree covered with moss. [Political Slang, U.S.]
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. an extremely old-fashioned conservative
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 A turtle that, because of its age, has a growth of algae on its back. 2 (context by extension English) A very conservative or reactionary person, especially one with old-fashioned views.
Usage examples of mossback.
He was half again as big as any other mossback around and the only one whose sleeping pit was in the Queen Grove.
The fact is I was becoming such a mossback that I had almost stopped reading the papers.
Bear Creek, by golly, if I have to lick every old mossback in the Humbolts.
There were mossbacks in other groves of the farm which had never come out of their sleeping pits or given any indication of being awake since Ilf could remember.
What would your mossbacks say if they found out you kicked their five long ones over to the arm-buster that got you in Dutch to begin with?
I think all the sleepy mossbacks were wide awake at last and realized that their kind of Democracy was tottering and waiting for the last blow.
It looked like the grandaddy of all brookies, a real mossback, dark greenish-blue above and silvery-white below, with pale wiggly markings up around the dorsal fin and blue-ringed yellow and pink spots on the flanks.