milquetoast
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of milquetoast
1935–40, after Caspar Milquetoast, a character in The Timid Soul, comic strip by H. T. Webster (1885–1952), American cartoonist
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.
But one can argue that Adjani couldn’t have gotten there without the slightly milquetoast banality of her character’s husband, played by Neill as one of the least exciting on-screen spies of the 1980s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
The 85-year-old label, tagged by the Observer as once being “synonymous with a particularly milquetoast suburban sensibility,” today posts fast-growing sales among famously fickle Gen Z shoppers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 25, 2026
News outlets ended up with articles bogged down in parsing federal law, carefully defining what exactly counts as an altercation, and quoting milquetoast official statements like “There was an incident and a report was filed.”
From Salon ● Sep. 5, 2024
It’s a clip so milquetoast and lacking in moral clarity it’s cringe-inducing to watch.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
O’Reilly’s replacement was Tucker Carlson, who, at the time, was probably best known as the boyish, milquetoast former co-host of Crossfire.
From Slate ● Apr. 24, 2023
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.
