not your father's

phrase

Recently changed, made unconventional through modernisation.

Meanings

phrase

alternative not your dad's

  1. idiomaticRecently changed, made unconventional through modernisation.

    Just as this isn't your father's army — it's also not your father's VA. The bureaucracy is bigger, the forms have multiplied, the benefits have become more complicated.

    2011, Peter S. Gaytan, For Service to Your Country: The Essential Guide to Getting the Veterans' Benefits You've Earned, →ISBN, page xv
    2 more examples

    This is not your father's computer programmer. The days when the typical information technology professional sat in a cubicle all day hunched over a keyboard, a can of Jolt Cola and a half-eaten Twinkie within arm's reach, seem about as quaint now as a genuine whistle-stop political campaign in the mass media age.

    2001, Leslie Jaye Goff, Get Your IT Career in Gear!, →ISBN, page 3

    Make no mistake about it, this ain't your dad's Final Fantasy. If you want an effiminate spikey haired main character with amnesia or serious social issues that must shoulder the burden of fighting a great and ancient evil, you're not going to find that here.

    2005, Shoeless Wayne Santos, “Final Fantasy XII”, in GameAxis Unwired, page 54

Origin

From an advertising slogan for the Oldsmobile car, "this is not your father's Oldsmobile".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

not your father's. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/not%20your%20father's

MLA

“not your father's.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/not%20your%20father's. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “not your father's,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/not%20your%20father's.

Source: not your father's on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.