stiff upper lip
IdiomsExample Sentences
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He is also softening the stiff upper lip that once personified his family’s approach; William was filmed recently tearing up after talking to a woman whose husband had died by suicide.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026
“So many people do have this view that Harry should have had a stiff upper lip, that he should have grit his teeth and borne it,” Smith told me.
From Slate • Jan. 14, 2023
But she assumed that the stiff upper lip emblematic of elite British society would not make for a compelling documentary — too guarded, too interested in hagiography, too much of an all-around royal pain.
From New York Times • Dec. 8, 2022
Anyone who has watched the many dramatizations of the queen’s life — including “The Crown” — or the coverage of her death is already well-versed in the problems of always maintaining a stiff upper lip.
From Washington Post • Nov. 13, 2022
In other words, it’s time for me to wear a beauty-pageant smile while keeping a very stiff upper lip.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
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.
