Word.ws English Dictionary

give oneself airs

give oneself airs verb: to act pretentiously, or in a snobbish manner; to swagger.

Verb

give oneself airs (third-person singular simple present gives oneself airs, present participle giving oneself airs, simple past gave oneself airs, past participle given oneself airs)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To act pretentiously, or in a snobbish manner; to swagger.
    Synonyms:
    put on airs

Synonyms of give oneself airs

Forms of give oneself airs

third-person singular presentgives oneself airs
present participlegiving oneself airs
pastgave oneself airs
past participlegiven oneself airs

Questions about give oneself airs

What does give oneself airs mean?
Give oneself airs means to act pretentiously, or in a snobbish manner; to swagger.
What part of speech is give oneself airs?
Give oneself airs is a verb.
What is the past tense of give oneself airs?
The past tense of give oneself airs is gave oneself airs.

Words near give oneself airs in the dictionary

  1. give one's head a shake
  2. give one's left nut
  3. give one's notice
  4. give one's right arm
  5. give one's word
  6. give oneself airs
  7. give or take
  8. give out
  9. give out stink
  10. give over
  11. give pause

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give oneself airs (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-give oneself airs.wav.

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