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View synonyms for stuffed shirt

stuffed shirt

noun

  1. a pompous, self-satisfied, and inflexible person.


stuffed shirt

noun

  1. informal.
    a pompous or formal person
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of stuffed shirt1

An Americanism dating back to 1910–15
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Idioms and Phrases

An overly formal or pompous person, as in She's such a stuffed shirt that I'm surprised you'd invite her to a barbecue . This expression alludes to a shirt filled with paper (instead of a real person). [c. 1900]
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Example Sentences

The term "stuffed shirt" was invented for a character such as McCarthy, who resigned his office after being ousted as speaker of the House earlier this year.

From Salon

There’s another son, Michael, played by Jake Davies; he’s a stuffed shirt who’s embarrassed by his father until — just watch the movie.

In the 2020 documentary “When Seattle Invented the Future,” fair special events coordinator Louis Larsen remembers the prince as “a stuffed shirt,” who said, “What am I, a trained seal?”

Both Baker and Cameron capture this optimistic atmosphere in the early scenes of their films: Irish jigs below deck and fine dining with the stuffed shirts above.

From Salon

That Rogers was able to persuade the burghers of Paris and the stuffed shirts of Lloyd's to commission such extraordinary structures says much for his powers of persuasion.

From BBC

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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