stager, old

   ‘Why, you chicken-hearted old stager,’ says Festus Derriman to an actress, in The Trumpet Major, by Thomas Hardy. The lady concerned claims to be twenty-two, and although she is older than that, she hardly qualifies for the description ‘old stager’ in any sense. Hardy seems to be using it to mean one experienced in the world of the theatre. The phrase ‘old stager’ has a far more general sense of one who has long experience of life.

   The earliest uses of the expression appear to owe nothing to the theatrical stage, but to suggest a connection with Old French estagier, or perhaps Latin stagiarius. Such terms were used to describe monks who had spent their lives within the confines of the monastery. The phrase continues in use, though it is rare as a vocative.