put on airs
IdiomsExample Sentences
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Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 introduced loanwords including gao, Japanese for “face,” adapted into Korean as “put on gao,” which means to put on airs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2025
Zaluzhny was already known as an ambitious and modern commander, but also an unpretentious man who liked to joke with his subordinates and didn't put on airs.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2023
Adams, who identifies as two-spirit — the term used by Indigenous communities for those who are nonbinary — did not put on airs.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
Sometimes you get intimidated by people because of their intellect, but she never put on airs.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 25, 2022
“They’ve got millions, but they live like human beings. They don’t put on airs and strut. Mrs. Dalton believes that people should be that way.”
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
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.
