stuffed shirt

See synonyms for stuffed shirt on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a pompous, self-satisfied, and inflexible person.

Origin of stuffed shirt

1
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15

Words Nearby stuffed shirt

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use stuffed shirt in a sentence

  • He had been herded into a corner by Johnson, Aunt Gretchen's stuffed shirt of a butler, who was standing guard over him.

  • Nayland is a stuffed shirt of the first stuffing, and a tinpot Hitler to boot, but he is fanatically and incorruptibly patriotic.

    The Mercenaries | Henry Beam Piper
  • I'm tired of all that other crowd—the stuffed shirt brigade, you know.

    The Salamander | Owen Johnson
  • He characterized Frank Shabata by a Bohemian expression which is the equivalent of stuffed shirt.

    O Pioneers! | Willa Cather
  • He turned to the crowd, which looked on in stunned silence, and tucked in his money-stuffed shirt.

    Wunpost | Dane Coolidge

British Dictionary definitions for stuffed shirt

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

Other Idioms and Phrases with stuffed shirt

stuffed shirt

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]

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