Word.ws English Dictionary

put on airs

put on airs verb: to become haughty, to assume a pretentious manner.

Verb

put on airs (third-person singular simple present puts on airs, present participle putting on airs, simple past and past participle put on airs)

  1. (idiomatic) To become haughty, to assume a pretentious manner.
    • Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government.1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC
    • "Now what if I talked white-folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin‘ on airs to beat Moses."1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

put on airs meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Tagalog

put on airs in Hindi

to put on airs, be haughty, think highly of oneself
चढ़ना caṛhnā

put on airs in Tamil

கருவங்கொள்ளுதல்

put on airs in Bengali

অহংকারী হওয়া, ভান ধরা

put on airs in Tagalog

become haughty, assume a haughty manner
magmaganda
More languagesFewer languages
put on airs in Malay
berhidung tinggi

Synonyms of put on airs

Forms of put on airs

third-person singular presentputs on airs
present participleputting on airs
past participleput on airs
pastput on airs

Questions about put on airs

What does put on airs mean?
Put on airs means to become haughty, to assume a pretentious manner.
What is put on airs in Hindi?
Put on airs in Hindi is चढ़ना (caṛhnā). See Put on airs meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is put on airs?
Put on airs is a verb.
What is the past tense of put on airs?
The past tense of put on airs is put on airs.

Words near put on airs in the dictionary

  1. put on
  2. put on a brave face
  3. put on a bus
  4. put on a clinic
  5. put on a pedestal
  6. put on airs
  7. put on dog
  8. put on frills
  9. put on one's dancing shoes
  10. put on one's own oxygen mask first
  11. put on one's oxygen mask first

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put on airs (page history and authors); चढ़ना (Hindi) (page history and authors); put on airs (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); put on airs (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-put on airs.ogg.

Cite this entry: “put on airs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_on_airs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.