Mitty
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Mitty
C20: from a short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1939), by James Thurber
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.
Jones said many in the veteran's community felt Walter Mitty hunters were doing a public service, but cautioned there was always the risk of causing harm to the individual being targeted.
From BBC • Jan. 21, 2026
For more than a decade, a group of anonymous veterans known as the Walter Mitty Hunters Club say they have made it their mission to help expose frauds posing as military service men or women.
From BBC • Jan. 21, 2026
“Snoopy, for example, is said to be an ‘extrovert beagle with a Walter Mitty complex.’
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 23, 2025
The attorney compared him to Walter Mitty, the character with the boring office job who escapes into elaborate imaginative worlds — a defense Sexton hated.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 14, 2025
“To aging Walter Mitty types like myself, Dick Bass was an inspiration,” Seaborn Beck Weathers explained in a thick East Texas twang during the trek to Everest Base Camp last April.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
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.
