Fuddy-duddy
//ˈfʌdiˌdʌdi// adj, noun, slang
adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An old-fashioned, persnickety or ineffective person. US, informal
"My grandma is a fuddy-duddy when it comes to keeping her house clean."
- 2 a conservative who is old-fashioned or dull in attitude or appearance wordnet
Adjective
- 1 Old-fashioned and persnickety or ineffective. US, informal
"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, […]"
Example
More examples"My uncle is a fuddy-duddy who thinks life was better back in the 1950s."
Etymology
Unknown. First attested in the US circa 1900.
Related phrases
More for "fuddy-duddy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.