See empty suit on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Derived from unfavorable observations that ineffective professionals are memorable only for their attire and not their accomplishments at the workplace. First use appears c. 1950 in the New York Times.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "empty suits",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "empty suit (plural empty suits)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "Peter principle"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Politics",
"orig": "en:Politics",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"coordinate_terms": [
{
"word": "stuffed shirt"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An ineffective or incompetent person in a place of authority."
],
"id": "en-empty_suit-en-noun-mShBlDf6",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"ineffective",
"ineffective"
],
[
"incompetent",
"incompetent"
],
[
"authority",
"authority"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang, derogatory, idiomatic, also politics) An ineffective or incompetent person in a place of authority."
],
"tags": [
"also",
"derogatory",
"idiomatic",
"slang"
],
"topics": [
"government",
"politics"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Politics",
"orig": "en:Politics",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "36 64",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "12 88",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "6 94",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
15,
25
]
],
"text": "John Doe is an empty suit running on an anti-populist platform.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A politician who has not fulfilled any campaign promises."
],
"id": "en-empty_suit-en-noun-FQIvJjMG",
"links": [
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"politician",
"politician"
],
[
"fulfil",
"fulfil"
],
[
"campaign",
"campaign"
],
[
"promise",
"promise"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(politics) A politician who has not fulfilled any campaign promises."
],
"topics": [
"government",
"politics"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/09/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav.mp3",
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}
],
"wikipedia": [
"New York Times"
],
"word": "empty suit"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "Derived from unfavorable observations that ineffective professionals are memorable only for their attire and not their accomplishments at the workplace. First use appears c. 1950 in the New York Times.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "empty suits",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "empty suit (plural empty suits)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "Peter principle"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English derogatory terms",
"English idioms",
"English slang",
"en:Politics"
],
"coordinate_terms": [
{
"word": "stuffed shirt"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An ineffective or incompetent person in a place of authority."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"ineffective",
"ineffective"
],
[
"incompetent",
"incompetent"
],
[
"authority",
"authority"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang, derogatory, idiomatic, also politics) An ineffective or incompetent person in a place of authority."
],
"tags": [
"also",
"derogatory",
"idiomatic",
"slang"
],
"topics": [
"government",
"politics"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with usage examples",
"en:Politics"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
15,
25
]
],
"text": "John Doe is an empty suit running on an anti-populist platform.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A politician who has not fulfilled any campaign promises."
],
"links": [
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"politician",
"politician"
],
[
"fulfil",
"fulfil"
],
[
"campaign",
"campaign"
],
[
"promise",
"promise"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(politics) A politician who has not fulfilled any campaign promises."
],
"topics": [
"government",
"politics"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-empty suit.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/09/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/09/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-empty_suit.wav.ogg"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"New York Times"
],
"word": "empty suit"
}
Download raw JSONL data for empty suit meaning in All languages combined (2.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-20 using wiktextract (cdfa371 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.