Like an old bagel

The answer

STALE

5 letters. See every clue for this answer on the STALE answer page.

Used 6 times across 6 distinct years; most recently in 2025; first recorded in 2001. It appears in 4 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other clues for STALE

Every other clue in this collection answered by STALE, most used first.

• No longer fresh - used 115 times, most recently in 2026
• Hackneyed - used 83 times, most recently in 2026
• Trite - used 53 times, most recently in 2023
• Old hat - used 46 times, most recently in 2023
• Like old bread - used 41 times, most recently in 2026
• Not fresh - used 33 times, most recently in 2026
• Flat - used 22 times, most recently in 2021
• Vapid - used 20 times, most recently in 2004
• Like week-old bread - used 18 times, most recently in 2026
• No longer edible - used 18 times, most recently in 2026
• Tired - used 17 times, most recently in 2025
• Overused - used 15 times, most recently in 2024
• Passe - used 15 times, most recently in 2013
• Far from fresh - used 13 times, most recently in 2026
• No longer fresh, as bread - used 11 times, most recently in 2025
• No longer novel - used 11 times, most recently in 2023
• Old - used 11 times, most recently in 2014
• Musty - used 10 times, most recently in 2012
• Past its prime - used 10 times, most recently in 2019
• Played out - used 10 times, most recently in 2026
• Cliché-ridden - used 9 times, most recently in 2013
• Not fresh, as bread - used 9 times, most recently in 2024
• Shopworn - used 9 times, most recently in 2026
• Banal - used 8 times, most recently in 2022
• Commonplace. - used 8 times, most recently in 1982
• Hardly original - used 8 times, most recently in 2025
• Fusty - used 7 times, most recently in 1991
• Like an old joke - used 7 times, most recently in 2021
• Like some jokes - used 7 times, most recently in 2024
• Overfamiliar - used 7 times, most recently in 2018
• Tasteless. - used 7 times, most recently in 1985
• Opposite of fresh - used 6 times, most recently in 2025
• Timeworn - used 6 times, most recently in 2025

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• Old anesthetic - ETHER, used 156 times
• Old-womanish - ANILE, used 155 times
• Old saying - ADAGE, used 127 times
• Old hat - PASSE, used 100 times
• Old enough - OFAGE, used 97 times
• "Old MacDonald" refrain - EIEIO, used 97 times

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