Word.ws English Dictionary

Show Me State

Show Me State proper noun: official nickname for Missouri: a state of the United States.

Proper noun

the Show Me State

  1. Official nickname for Missouri: a state of the United States.

Origin of Show Me State

Uncertain, but often attributed to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who in a speech in Philadelphia in 1899 declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."

Questions about Show Me State

What does Show Me State mean?
Show Me State means official nickname for Missouri: a state of the United States.
What part of speech is Show Me State?
Show Me State is a proper noun.

Words near Show Me State in the dictionary

  1. show homes
  2. show in
  3. show jumper
  4. show jumpers
  5. show jumping
  6. Show Me State
  7. show notes
  8. show of force
  9. show of hands
  10. show of strength
  11. show off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Show Me State (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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