Word.ws English Dictionary

adults in the room

adults in the room is the plural of adult in the room.

Meaning of adult in the room

Noun

adult in the room (plural adults in the room)

  1. (figuratively, in plural, often) Someone, especially a senior member of staff, who counteracts impulsive or reckless behavior.
    • “Keep in mind, these guys were the adults in the room in the first Trump administration keeping Trump from going full dictator,” said [Michael] Kosta. “And they’re not going to be there the second time around.[…]”2024 October 24, Michael Kosta, quotee, “Seth Meyers on Trump: ‘A ridiculous buffoon and an incredibly dangerous menace’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 11 Aug 2025

Questions about adults in the room

What is adults in the room the plural of?
Adults in the room is the plural of adult in the room.

Words near adults in the room in the dictionary

  1. adultophilic
  2. adultress
  3. adultresses
  4. adultry
  5. adults
  6. adults in the room
  7. adultship
  8. adultspeak
  9. adultswear
  10. adultwear
  11. adulty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: adults in the room (page history and authors); adult in the room (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “adults in the room.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adults_in_the_room. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.