0 a respected leader, often one who no longer has an active job, who is thought of as having good advice to give:
1 an older person who is respected and asked for advice because of his or her past experience:
He is one of basketball’s elder statesmen.
After his elevation to another place he was regarded as the elder statesman of agriculture.
I think that is rather symbolic of him, an elder statesman of 91, asking this last question about the future education of children in science.
He spoke with a stoical disenchantment which can come only from an elder statesman.
You evidently have the aura of an elder statesman.
From time to time he dons the mantle of the elder statesman, and from time to time he cannot resist making the most outrageous statements.
He has moved from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period.
He had then the air and manner of an elder statesman.
It is something of an elder statesman or father figure.
