stiff upper lip
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the current, so-called third design generation, the hood slopes down to form the stiff upper lip of a mouth pursed with purpose.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2025
Yet speaking to him reveals the specific pressure of keeping terrible secrets in the name of the English aristocracy's so-called "stiff upper lip".
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2024
“So many people do have this view that Harry should have had a stiff upper lip, that he should have grit his teeth and borne it,” Smith told me.
From Slate ● Jan. 14, 2023
But she assumed that the stiff upper lip emblematic of elite British society would not make for a compelling documentary — too guarded, too interested in hagiography, too much of an all-around royal pain.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2022
The British magazine Chess relaxed its stiff upper lip, calling Bobby’s effort a game of “great depth and brilliancy.”
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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.
