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George Stimpson

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How did stuffed shirt originate?

Stuffed shirt, in the slang sense of a pompous person who doesn't amount to much, originated in 1899 when the American actress Fay Templeton threw the phrase as an epithet at a "tremendous nobody" named John Gates. In his diary John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) used "stuffed cravat" in a similar sense.