"out of date," first recorded 1911. As a noun phrase, however, it had a different sense in 18c. The "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1796) defines it as, "a woman's privities, because frequently felt."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

old hat definition

Obsolete, old-fashioned: “Get with it, Murray; your methods are strictly old hat.”

Slang Dictionary

old hat definition

n.
an old-fashioned thing or person; an outmoded thing or person. : That's just old hat. This is the modern world!

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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"Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty and specious profundity to ideas that, if stated directly, would seem superficial, stale, frivolous, or false. The line between serious and spurious scholarship is an easy one to blur, with jargon on your side."

-David Lehman

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