Word.ws English Dictionary

fuddy-duddyism

fuddy-duddyism noun: attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a fuddy-duddy; a tendency toward overly conservative persnicketiness.

Noun

fuddy-duddyism (uncountable)

  1. Attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a fuddy-duddy; a tendency toward overly conservative persnicketiness.
    • Don't be fooled by the old wives' tale that creeping fuddy-duddyism has something to do with hardening of the arteries.1967, Robert Cillier Page, How to Lick Executive Stress, page 22
    • As one who was born disliking most of whatever music was currently popular—preferring country-and-western and classical, and having a selective taste for traditional English, Scottish, Irish, and Russian ballads, some jazz and some blues—I did not instantly admit to fuddy-duddyism.2001, Philip R. Craig, Vineyard Blues, →ISBN, page 71

Origin of fuddy-duddyism

From fuddy-duddy + -ism.

Questions about fuddy-duddyism

What does fuddy-duddyism mean?
Fuddy-duddyism means attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a fuddy-duddy; a tendency toward overly conservative persnicketiness.
What part of speech is fuddy-duddyism?
Fuddy-duddyism is a noun.

Words near fuddy-duddyism in the dictionary

  1. fuddy-duddier
  2. fuddy-duddies
  3. fuddy-duddiest
  4. fuddy-duddily
  5. fuddy-duddy
  6. fuddy-duddyism
  7. fuddyduddies
  8. fuddyduddy
  9. fude pen
  10. fude pens
  11. fude-pen

Source and license

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