stodgy
Americanadjective
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heavy, dull, or uninteresting; tediously commonplace; boring.
a stodgy Victorian novel.
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of a thick, semisolid consistency; heavy, as food.
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stocky; thick-set.
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old-fashioned; unduly formal and traditional.
a stodgy old gentleman.
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dull; graceless; inelegant.
a stodgy business suit.
adjective
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(of food) heavy or uninteresting
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excessively formal and conventional
Other Word Forms
- stodgily adverb
- stodginess noun
Etymology
Origin of stodgy
Explanation
The Queen's guards outside Buckingham Palace might seem stodgy (or stuffy and stuck-up), but they are only doing their job. Stodgy is an adjective to describe anything dull, out-of-style, or even hard to digest. Just your luck getting stuck sitting next to stodgy Aunt Irma at Thanksgiving! From the looks of her stodgy moth-smelling clothes to her stodgy or dull conversation, chances are it will be a long meal. Just hope the mashed potatoes are light and fluffy.
Vocabulary lists containing stodgy
This Is Not a Drill: Synonyms for "Boring"
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"Slam: Performance Poetry Lives On" and "Euphoria"
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The World Is Flat
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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.
They are no longer stodgy arrangements used by the uber-wealthy to wall off their money.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026
The equal-weight index is off to one of its best starts to a year in decades as stodgy stocks get rediscovered.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 11, 2026
Stingingly, the article shows readers some examples of Hitler’s own work, the rather stodgy and static products of a draftsman who aspires to art.
From Los Angeles Times • May 7, 2025
Once again Pakistan's fragile and stodgy top order failed to muster the runs which would prove a real challenge to their Indian counterparts.
From BBC • Feb. 23, 2025
I was expecting a stodgy, older gentleman who’d offer me canned encomiums about Hopkins and then stiffen and ask for the check when he found out the details of my standardized test scores.
From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore
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.
