stodgy
Americanadjective
-
heavy, dull, or uninteresting; tediously commonplace; boring.
a stodgy Victorian novel.
-
of a thick, semisolid consistency; heavy, as food.
-
stocky; thick-set.
-
old-fashioned; unduly formal and traditional.
a stodgy old gentleman.
-
dull; graceless; inelegant.
a stodgy business suit.
adjective
-
(of food) heavy or uninteresting
-
excessively formal and conventional
Other Word Forms
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"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"Slam: Performance Poetry Lives On" and "Euphoria"
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
The World Is Flat
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
That self-awareness has made their late-period work all too stodgy, selecting roles clearly informed by their notable reputations.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026
Investors in turn are recalibrating the yields they’ll demand to hold stodgy government debt.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Tuning in for some TV takes: Netflix’s binge-drop model disrupted the stodgy rhythms of old-school TV.
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2026
This one has shades of the friendly with Gibraltar 12 months ago, which was another stodgy affair and it may be similar this time round at the end of a long season.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2025
Rumor had it that the peanut butter maker’s husband—a stodgy, surly type—shut down the factory after his wife’s death, purely out of spite.
From "A Tangle of Knots" by Lisa Graff
Washington used to be a stodgier place where power followed clearer-cut roles: politicians, lobbyists, consultants, business executives and journalists all kept in their lanes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 11, 2026
Overall, viewers get a ridiculously entertaining and colorful nostalgia trip that may be impossible to believe would have existed in the stodgier 1950s.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 22, 2022
The Star was known as a writer’s paper, often more creative and entertaining than the stodgier Post.
From New York Times ● Jan. 7, 2022
It was always a more polite but stodgier version of “Crossfire” — a cancelled format co-created by Buchanan.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2019
Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion bursting with peel and raisins.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
The reason lies in LinkedIn’s oldest and stodgiest rule.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
It was the biggest, the stodgiest, the most arrogant.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 4, 2021
Seems a man named Frank Rosenberg, a Texas oil man, wanted to get into Los Angeles Country Club, the West Coast version of the stodgiest and most exclusive club in the world.
From Golf Digest ● Mar. 30, 2020
What unites so many of these shows is a love for that stodgiest of TV ideas: There should be a new story in every new episode.
From Slate ● Dec. 12, 2019
Of the 11 sectors that make up the S&P 500, the ones seen as the stodgiest have been the best recently.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2019
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
