Stuffy

/ˈstʌfi/ · adjective

Meaning

Poorly ventilated; partially plugged..

Definitions by Sense

1. Poorly ventilated; partially plugged.
2. Uncomfortably warm without sufficient air circulation.
3. Stout; mettlesome; resolute.
4. (US) Angry and obstinate; sulky.
5. Boring, old-fashioned, uninteresting, over-formal, pompous, very conventional.
6. (Scotland) Stout; sturdy.
7. (US, Canada, colloquial, often childish) Synonym of stuffed toy.

Example Sentences

I can’t smell very well today – I have a stuffy nose.

Let’s go outside – it’s getting stuffy in here.

If Euston is not typically English, St. Pancras is. Its façade is a nightmare of improbable Gothic. It is fairly plastered with the aesthetic ideals of 1868, and the only beautiful thing about it is Barlow's roof. It is haunted by the stuffier kind of ghost. Yet there is something about the ordered whole of St. Pancras that would make demolition a terrible pity.

We all sat in stuffy classrooms and had men in tweedy sportscoats ruin our afternoons.

The stuffy professor droned on as the class lost interest.

It could be argued that the rise of the socially conscious model reflects a very 2017 archetype: the “woke” young woman, who looks set to define femininity this decade in the same way that the lager-swilling ladette did in the 90s. It is also symptomatic of a broader cultural “awokening” that has reached the stuffiest institutions; even the royal family has recently relaxed its upper lip.

Synonyms for stuffy

Antonyms for stuffy

Related Words

Word Forms

• stuffier
• stuffiest
• stuffies
• stuffie

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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