stuffy
Americanadjective
-
stuffier,
comparative
-
stuffiest
superlative
-
close; poorly ventilated.
a stuffy room.
-
oppressive from lack of freshness.
stuffy air; a stuffy odor.
-
lacking in interest, as writing or discourse.
- Synonyms:
- stodgy
-
affected with a sensation of obstruction in the respiratory passages.
a stuffy nose.
-
dull or tedious; boring.
- Synonyms:
- stodgy
-
self-important; pompous.
- Synonyms:
- smug
-
rigid or strait-laced in attitudes, especially in matters of personal behavior.
- Synonyms:
- priggish
-
old-fashioned; conservative.
- Synonyms:
- stodgy
-
ill-tempered; sulky.
adjective
-
lacking fresh air
-
excessively dull, staid, or conventional
-
(of the nasal passages) blocked with mucus
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of stuffy
Explanation
A room that's stuffy isn't well-ventilated or full of fresh air. If your classroom is stuffy, you may find it hard to concentrate. Better ask your teacher to open a window. If your car is stuffy, it's hot and there isn't enough fresh air circulating. If your nose is stuffy, it's congested (also without enough air moving through it). When a person is stuffy, he or she is a little prim and proper, without a lot of imagination or a willingness to try new things. The very earliest meaning of this adjective, dating from about 1550, was "full of substance."
Vocabulary lists containing stuffy
The Catcher in the Rye
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Genesis Begins Again
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Finding Langston
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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:
Mr. Gorra is a professor of English, lately emeritus, at Smith College, and occasionally the air of the seminar room gets stuffy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Among legacy networks, NBC was already the best match for Netflix—less stuffy than CBS News, less adventurous and jazzy than ABC News, at least by the images the three news divisions cultivated in their heyday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
If it’s starting to feel a little stuffy around here, it’s not just you, it’s a preview of what’s coming for the rest of the week in Southern California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
There's nothing worse than putting a child to sleep in a stuffy bedroom when you're already sweating.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
“Put them away until we need them. They clogged the energy. Everything is already so stuffy here.”
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
How delightfully ironic that Mary and her avant-garde charm, which was once polarizing and niche to the film’s stuffier early critics, were finally finding a wider audience.
From Salon ● Jun. 9, 2025
Many of them prefer data science or finance, while accounting struggles with a stuffier, more old-fashioned image.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
The fight now seems silly — jazz has managed to accommodate many styles and genres — but it can still raise ruffles in the stuffier or more progressive quarters.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2017
The feeling that writers were taking on the topics nobody else wanted to touch—stuff readers would never see in stuffier, more traditional outlets—was the source of Gawker’s popularity and, ultimately, its undoing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2016
Four hundred brand-new students made the auditorium of Xin-zha Junior High School even stuffier.
From "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-li Jiang
Naturally, this is the film’s opening scene, intended to communicate that managing Tourette’s is a lifelong endeavor, but that even the stuffiest, most proper royal figurehead can meet the condition with patience and understanding.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026
Of all the neighborhoods in New York City, the Upper East Side has long had a reputation for being the most boring, old-school and stuffiest part of town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
Held at Riviera, one of the best, and stuffiest, courses in the country.
From Golf Digest ● Feb. 27, 2020
In making them, company veterans argue, the firm opened up the stuffiest, cartelised corners of India’s economy.
From Economist ● Jul. 31, 2014
They’d taken a job at the Louvre because it was the stuffiest place in Paris.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
