veteran

noun

1. 1

   A person with long experience of a particular activity.

   The company's new hires were nervous, but the veterans were self-assured because, as one summarized it, "this isn't our first rodeo."

2. 2

   A person with long experience of a particular activity. A person who has served in the armed forces, especially an old soldier who has seen long service.

   We honor veterans and senior citizens with a ten percent discount.

   For 55-year-old U.S. Army veteran Sae Joon Park, this was the hardest moment of his life. […] Park's story reflects both the challenges of life after combat and the perils that noncitizen veterans face if caught in the legal system — realities made harsher amid the Trump administration's push for record deportations.

3. 3

   figurativeA group, animal, etc. with long experience of a particular activity.

   Their mules were clearly veterans. They seemed to know what to do even better than the teenage farmhand who was driving the team.

   Most of the cars which we call "veterans" today were on view at the Motor Show of 1911.

   The label has often collaborated with other designers, like Australian shoemaker Teva and American woolwear veteran Pendleton.

adjective

1. 1

   Having had long experience, practice, or service.

   The insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers.

   Nothing could be more business-like than the construction of the stout dams, and nothing more gently rural than the limpid lakes, with the grand old forest trees marshalled round their margins like a veteran army that had marched down to drink, only to be stricken motionless at the water’s edge.

   “That was in Casco,” his wife contradicted immediately. She spoke in the unmistakable tones of a veteran contradictor.

2. 2

   Of or relating to former members of the military armed forces, especially those who served during wartime.

Forms

plural

veterans