fuddy-duddy

noun, adj — 2 senses

fuddy-duddy

noun

/ˈfʌdiˌdʌdi/

Etymology Unknown. First attested in the US circa 1900.

1

US, Informal An old-fashioned, persnickety or ineffective person.

My grandma is a fuddy-duddy when it comes to keeping her house clean.

Derived terms: fuddy-duddery, fuddy-duddyish, fuddy-duddyism, fudd

fuddy-duddy

adj

Etymology Unknown. First attested in the US circa 1900.

1

US, Informal Old-fashioned and persnickety or ineffective.

Kingsolver lives by the tenets of her public-spirited fictional characters, whom she sculpts with a keen eye for individuality, e.g. Nannie Land Rawley, a seventy-something orchardist who shocks a fuddy-duddy male neighbor by wearing shorts, […]2015, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Barbara Kingsolver: A Literary Companion, McFarland, →ISBN, page 4:

Derived terms: fuddy-duddily

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.