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
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
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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
Cite this Entry
“Stuffed shirt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stuffed%20shirt. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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