empty suit

[emp-tee soot]

noun

Slang.

1. an executive, manager, or official regarded as ineffectual, incompetent, or lacking in leadership qualities such as creativity and empathy.

   Their executive search came up with one empty suit after another.

Word History and Origins

Origin of empty suit¹

First recorded in 1950–55; empty ( def. ) + suit ( def. ) (in the sense “faceless decision maker”)

Idioms and Phrases

An unimportant person; also, a phony. For example, Don't pay any attention to him—he's just an empty suit, or She acts as though she knows what she's doing, but she's really an empty suit. This graphic expression calls up the image of an empty suit of clothes. [c. 1970]

Example Sentences

One Democratic operative told me, a few days before Joe Biden stood down, that Ms Harris was nothing more than “an empty suit who has neither an ideological rudder or a moral compass”.

Read more on BBC

Trump’s former attorney Ty Cobb, quoted in the Independent Friday, gave the convention high marks for its theatrics but said Trump is an empty suit of blind ambition and no principles.

Read more on Salon

He's an empty suit of plastic emotions bound in hubris and anger.

Read more on Salon

She’s not a shell, or in words we would apply to a man of her ilk, an empty suit.

Read more on Salon

The fact is, I’m also thankful many are aware that Trump is nothing but an empty suit who loathes everyone and everything on Earth – including himself.

Read more on Salon