holdovers

Staff from before

Holdovers are people or things that remain from an earlier period.

Political appointees who stay after a new administration takes office are holdovers: Several holdovers from the previous cabinet kept their positions.

The term applies to anything that persists beyond its original time—outdated policies, lingering traditions, or employees retained through a transition.

remnants

vestiges

Remaining traces of something

relicsPreserved items from antiquity
leftoversUneaten food kept afterward
residueMatter left behind

survivors · remains · traces · carryovers · hangovers · legacies · stragglers · remainders · echoes · fragments

persistent

lingering

Remaining beyond expected duration

enduringPersisting through time
lastingContinuing through time
entrenchedFirmly established, resistant to change

stubborn · tenacious · resilient · surviving · continuing · abiding · remaining · retained · prolonged · grandfathered

outdated

antiquated

Old and outdated

obsoleteNo longer in use
archaicBelonging to earlier times
outmodedNo longer in fashion

dated · old-fashioned · anachronistic · fossilized · stale · obsolescent · defunct · superseded · deprecated · bygone

Categories

remaindersleftovers, remainder, remnants, residue, scraps
remnants of the pastrelics, ruins, fossils, vestiges, artifacts
appointmentsappointment, appointees, booking, nominations, nominees
vestigestraces, remnants, relics, ruins, fossils

Opposites

continuity vs. newness

holdoversnewcomers

Those recently arrived

new arrivals · appointees · new blood · first-timers · novices

retention vs. replacement

holdoversreplacements

Items taking others' places

successors · newcomers · substitutes · new blood · new arrivals

freshness/currency

holdoversinnovations

New methods or devices

updates · novelties · originals

Family

Familiarity: Top 200,000
Profile: Used worldwide · Timeless · Everyday, not technical · Rated G