stuffed shirt

noun

: a smug, conceited, and usually pompous person often with an inflexibly conservative or reactionary attitude

Examples of stuffed shirt in a Sentence

the stuffed shirts in this organization don't seem to realize that without new blood our extinction is inevitable
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
With his piano-pounding performances, wild vocals, bouffant hair and makeup, Little Richard burst onto the musical scene in the 1950s and shook up the stuffed shirts with a string of his hit songs that got both black and white people dancing. NBC News, 9 May 2020 Karen Knorr’s photos of the private members’ clubs of London in the early 1980s are full of stuffed shirts wearing gleaming brogues. The Economist, 25 Feb. 2020 For this case, he has been contracted by a bunch of white-haired stuffed shirts with medals on their chests to find anyone who enabled the Kansas City suicide bombers, who crossed into the United States via the Mexican border. Katie Walsh, Detroit Free Press, 28 June 2018

Word History

First Known Use

1904, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of stuffed shirt was in 1904

Dictionary Entries Near stuffed shirt

Cite this Entry

“Stuffed shirt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stuffed%20shirt. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!