stuffed shirt

American

noun

a pompous, self-satisfied, and inflexible person.

stuffed shirt British

noun

informal a pompous or formal person

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

stuffed shirt Idioms

An overly formal or pompous person, as in She's such a stuffed shirt that I'm surprised you'd invite her to a barbecue. This expression alludes to a shirt filled with paper (instead of a real person). [c. 1900]

Etymology

Origin of stuffed shirt

An Americanism dating back to 1910–15

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.

The term "stuffed shirt" was invented for a character such as McCarthy, who resigned his office after being ousted as speaker of the House earlier this year.

From Salon • Dec. 26, 2023

There’s another son, Michael, played by Jake Davies; he’s a stuffed shirt who’s embarrassed by his father until — just watch the movie.

From Washington Post • May 31, 2022

Suddenly, he wasn’t a stuffed shirt making $40 million per year to lord over the nation’s most popular league.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 26, 2020

The descendants of Fitzmaurice were angry at how he was portrayed by Paul French as a bit of a "stuffed shirt", useless bureaucrat.

From BBC • Jan. 7, 2019

“But it wasn’t by some stuffed shirt, pompous, arrogant princeling!”

From "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023