Word.ws English Dictionary

from Missouri

from Missouri prepositional phrase: skeptical, not easily convinced and requiring proof.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (informal) Skeptical, not easily convinced and requiring proof.
    • The appeal to experience was the cry of the man from Missouri—the demand to be shown.1916, John Dewey, “Introduction”, in Essays in Experimental Logic
    • When one predicted that the atom bomb would end the world, the other said, ‘I’m from Missouri—you’ll have to show me.’ His friend answered, ‘Hell, who isn’t from Missouri these days?’2007, John T. Barker, Missouri Lawyer, page 266

Origin of from Missouri

Referring to the state of Missouri, whose common nickname is the Show Me State.

Questions about from Missouri

What does from Missouri mean?
From Missouri means skeptical, not easily convinced and requiring proof.
What part of speech is from Missouri?
From Missouri is a prepositional phrase.

Words near from Missouri in the dictionary

  1. from hunger
  2. from jump street
  3. from Kashmir to Kanyakumari
  4. from me born
  5. from memory
  6. from Missouri
  7. from moment to moment
  8. from Murphy to Manteo
  9. from my cold, dead hands
  10. from now on
  11. from nowhere

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: from Missouri (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: “from Missouri.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/from_missouri. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.