EMPTY SUIT Definition & Meaning

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empty suit

[ emp-tee soot ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

Slang.

an executive, manager, or official regarded as ineffectual, incompetent, or lacking in leadership qualities such as creativity and empathy:
Their executive search came up with one empty suit after another.

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of empty suit¹

First recorded in 1950–55; empty ( def ) + suit ( def ) (in the sense “faceless decision maker”)

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Idioms and Phrases

An unimportant person; also, a phony. For example, Don't pay any attention to him—he's just an empty suit , or She acts as though she knows what she's doing, but she's really an empty suit . This graphic expression calls up the image of an empty suit of clothes. [c. 1970]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

One Democratic operative told me, a few days before Joe Biden stood down, that Ms Harris was nothing more than “an empty suit who has neither an ideological rudder or a moral compass”.

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Trump’s former attorney Ty Cobb, quoted in the Independent Friday, gave the convention high marks for its theatrics but said Trump is an empty suit of blind ambition and no principles.

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He's an empty suit of plastic emotions bound in hubris and anger.

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She’s not a shell, or in words we would apply to a man of her ilk, an empty suit.

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The fact is, I’m also thankful many are aware that Trump is nothing but an empty suit who loathes everyone and everything on Earth – including himself.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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