an old one

an old one

A familiar or well-known joke. That an old one, sure to make people laugh.
See also: old, one
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

an old one

a familiar joke.
See also: old, one
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • geezer
  • as old as my eyes and a little (bit) older than my teeth
  • any old
  • old cobber
  • old bag
  • an old bag
  • an old bat
  • old bat
  • old dear
  • an old dear
References in classic literature
Here sat two female figures, a young and an old one. One might have thought at first they were servants come to accompany their mistresses home; but on looking nearer, one soon saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their forms were too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their dress too striking.
Once we met four young elephants, and an old one that played with them, lifting them up with her trunk; they grew enraged on a sudden, and ran upon us: we had no way of securing ourselves but by flight, which, however, would have been fruitless, had not our pursuers been stopped by a deep ditch.
"I was waiting about 20 minutes but then she came back and said there were two lamp-posts, an old one and a new one.
Some say he won't come to terms with a new language - "how much?" is the only phrase he really needs - but he still has to come to terms with his old one, and normally he's quick to agree terms with an old one.
But the debate is an old one. Twenty-one years ago The Advocate traced the growing gay religious movement in the United States.
It is much simpler to maintain a new building than an old one. We also added a staff room where they can keep their personal belongings.
For Election Day 2000 a new option and an old one are in place.
The first accusation is an old one. Scientists believe this male chromosome once had thousands of genes in common with the X chromosome, the other mammalian sex chromosome.
A highly charged narrative was set up between a tree trunk, a basketball hoop, an African vessel containing a new basketball, and a wall dirtied with marks made by an old one. The basketball was present on the wall only as a trace, seeming to pass through an imaginary voyage in space and conjuring up fast-moving bodies in a game that, for Hammons, is paradigmatic, as it embodies the transformation of a white "game plan" by black experience and skill.
What's more, the down-to-earth controllers ease troubleshooting and repair tasks: Point's technicians can quickly and inexpensively swap a new controller for an old one when problems arise.
On the other hand, if it uses federal funds to build a new building or facility or remodel an old one, the new or remodeled portion probably must comply with the requirements of the ABA, independent of whether the institution has satisfied the program-accessibility requirements of the funding agency's 504 regulation.
The idea of using an ammonia-water mixture is an old one. However, Kalina solved a problem that previous engineers had failed to master.
A physicist with the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, was about to order a new radium source for an experiment when he found an old one left by a predecessor.