empty suit

[ emp-tee soot ]
See synonyms for empty suit on Thesaurus.com
nounSlang.
  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.

Origin of empty suit

1
First recorded in 1950–55; empty + suit (in the sense “faceless decision maker”)

Words Nearby empty suit

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use empty suit in a sentence

  • Remember his summer blitz of attack ads about Obama being an empty suit, a celebrity and a pretty face and all that?

  • And far from defining him as an empty suit, it suggests he is one filled with both hubris and sanctimony.

    Herman Cain's Power Suit | Robin Givhan | November 4, 2011 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • Ali had devised a method of protection for the empty suit the Medic would wear—had that held?

    Plague Ship | Andre Norton
  • I open the case—I take out the collar—I place it gently on the porch railing—and I take the empty suit-case into the house.

    The Cheerful Smugglers | Ellis Parker Butler
  • We furnished him with an empty suit-case, and, from the window, watched him making for Mitre Court at a smart double.

    John Thorndyke's Cases | R. Austin Freeman

Other Idioms and Phrases with empty suit

empty suit

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]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.