right stuff

noun

, Informal.

1. Usually the right stuff. the necessary or ideal qualities or capabilities, as courage, confidence, dependability, toughness, or daring.

Word History and Origins

Origin of right stuff¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

The idea wasn’t so much to train men to do a job but to strip away those who didn’t have the right stuff.

From Popular-Science

That’s apt, since Funk outperformed Glenn during the Mercury 13 shadow astronaut trials that showed women also had the right stuff.

From Ozy

Honor his claim that he had no right stuff—and let’s hope he’d honor our belief that, yeah, he actually did.

From Time

Buy your pass and join us on December 16 – 17 for two days packed with all the right stuff, including untapped opportunity.

From TechCrunch

It left me knowing what I already suspected, that Jane has the Right Stuff.

From The Daily Beast

The Mossad devotes an exceptional amount of time and effort determining if an operative possesses the "right stuff."

From The Daily Beast

Ex-Bush aide Mark McKinnon keeps waiting for Romney to turn his campaign around and show the right stuff.

From The Daily Beast

He has lived where he wanted and still got to make The Right Stuff and his greatest film, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

From The Daily Beast

Few whites believed that blacks had the right stuff to tackle tricky and arduous long-distance flights.

From The Daily Beast

"It's the right stuff," she said, between laughing and crying.

From Project Gutenberg

The fellows that make pioneers are the right stuff—you know that.

From Project Gutenberg

Simply because there is not enough of him, or what there is is not of the right stuff.

From Project Gutenberg

Would he regard me as the right stuff of which to make a man?

From Project Gutenberg

Now these blessed cartridges packed full of the right stuff put an end to furtive doubts.

From Project Gutenberg