fuddy-duddy
Americannoun
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fuddy-duddies
plural
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a person who is stuffy, old-fashioned, and conservative.
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a person who is fussy or picayune about details; fussbudget.
adjective
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stuffy, old-fashioned, and conservative.
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fussy; picayune.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fuddy-duddy
First recorded in 1900–05; of obscure origin
Explanation
An old-fashioned, fussy person can be called a fuddy-duddy. You might accuse your best friend of being a fuddy-duddy if she prefers staying home drinking tea and reading on Saturday nights, instead of going dancing with you. A fuddy-duddy has no sense of humor and is disapproving and a bit pompous. Fuddy-duddies seem dull and conservative, overly careful, and critical of other people's decisions. While we know fuddy-duddy first appeared in print in the late 1800s, and that it originated in the United States, its origin is a mystery.
Vocabulary lists containing fuddy-duddy
O'Reilly's Lexicon of Epithets
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A Wind in the Door
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Bob Newhart (1929–2024) Tribute List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
And not to be a fuddy-duddy, but I can think of many better uses, including using that desire to connect with people to motivate charity work, political organizing, or just throwing a dinner party.
From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2025
Richard Martin says: "It was the 60s, the government wanted to be modern and thrusting, it wanted to get rid of old fuddy-duddy stuff."
From BBC ● Jan. 29, 2023
Spend a bit of time with any progressive teenager, and regardless of your trailblazing bona fides, you might quickly be reduced to a conservative fuddy-duddy.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2021
Dream movie moment: Cora, who sometimes seems a few scones short of a tea tray, wises up and leaves fuddy-duddy Robert for a dashing London financier played by Hugh Grant.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 10, 2019
You're a nice old fuddy-duddy that father sent to the spaceport because he figured you'd be too timid to get into trouble.
From The Pirates of Ersatz by Kelly Freas
We tend to think of people from long ago as credulous, unsophisticated fuddy-duddies.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 13, 2021
In the Spiel, why the Dow is for fuddy-duddies.
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2017
Even more startling, some of the fuddy-duddies in traditional media turn out to have a bigger millennial audience than Vice — including, uh, The New York Times, Mr. McDermott said..
From New York Times ● Oct. 10, 2014
English Heritage objected, but who cared about the complaints of culturally conservative fuddy-duddies?
From The Guardian ● Aug. 19, 2011
You used an expression, dear,—old fuddy-duddies, was it?
From Three Margarets by Etheldred B. (Etheldred Breeze) Barry
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
