put on airs
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For all his crowing about his money and showing off, he really didn’t put on airs.
From Salon ● Nov. 23, 2025
Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 introduced loanwords including gao, Japanese for “face,” adapted into Korean as “put on gao,” which means to put on airs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2025
Adams, who identifies as two-spirit — the term used by Indigenous communities for those who are nonbinary — did not put on airs.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
Sometimes you get intimidated by people because of their intellect, but she never put on airs.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 25, 2022
You wouldn’t say he put on airs or pretended to be what he wasn’t, but unlike Grandpa Blakeslee, he liked seeming well-off and “modrun.”
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
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.
