Dictionary

stuffed shirt en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, informal) One who is pompous or self-important, especially one who is either officious or punctilious in a position of authority.
   • Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm? 1941, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (motion picture), spoken by Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), RKO Radio Pictures:
   • Dr. Laughlin was the only one in a movie party who detested the second male lead—"I regarded him as overserious, pedantic, a stuffed shirt." 1952 May 26, “Medicine: Mind Matters”, in Time, archived from the original on 01 Dec 2012:
   • Oh? I remember, you came to Chicago once. Bit of a stuffed shirt, aren't you? 1944, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 5, in The Razor’s Edge […], 1st American edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., →OCLC, section ii, page 208:
   • The opportunistic style that was the bank's trademark still prevails and continues to attract talented young Hong Kongers looking for an alternative to the stuffed-shirt culture of most U.S. and European banks. 2000 July 10, Frederik Balfour, “Return of a Hong Kong Highflier”, in BusinessWeek:
   • "Don't you come the high-and-holy on me. You and your smooth, big, phony stuffed-shirt of a father." 1914, Samuel Hopkins Adams, chapter 30, in The Clarion:

Forms

Coordinates

empty suit

Translations (11)

pl formalistka (one who is overly-officious) · fi mahtailija (one who is overly-officious) · it pallone gonfiato (one who is overly-officious) · pl formalista (one who is overly-officious) · de Wichtigtuer (one who is overly-officious) · es persona estirada (one who is overly-officious) · de Wichtigmacher (one who is overly-officious) · pl sztywniaczka (one who is overly-officious) · pl sztywniak (one who is overly-officious) · fi tärkeilijä (one who is overly-officious) · ru напыщенное ничто́жество (one who is overly-officious)