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Glite Dictionary
🧓 Old-fashioned 🍞 Heavy food
stodgy

stodgy

8 7.8
Dull and old-fashioned, not interesting or new
  • adjective
  • /ˈstədʒi/
translation icon : aburrido
  • Clara's excitement caught and overwhelmed even the stodgy older woman, and everyone opened up in her eagerness.
  • stodgy image
  • stodgy company
  • stodgy old-fashioned

Don't want any of the comments above to be misconstrued as stodgy, and that is from B.

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Examples

  • Regarded as minor, they have been rendered stodgy and inoffensive.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Samsung moved from a seller of stodgy electronics to an edgy developer of flat-panel plasma TVs, largely by getting different departments.

    Academic text (2007)

  • "Any relation to the stodgy Charles Lamb?"

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Look at all these stodgy old docs with their white wine and their golf games.

    Flatliners (2017)

  • I nodded quickly, worried that she would think me too conventional and stodgy.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Well, she doesn't need any more stodgy period dramas.

    The Cat's Meow (2001)

  • The way it would be if only everybody wasn't so stodgy and old-fashioned.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Other wives were faulted for being overly serious, too stodgy, or too frugal.

    Academic text (2013)

  • She's dressed carefully for tonight; upscale and respectable, without being stodgy.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The committee's stodgy approach to new ideas prevented any real innovation from happening.

Synonyms

tired
vsstodgy
643 4.4

An idea or phrase used so often that it feels boring

is broader, adding old style and resistance to new ways
old-fashioned
vsstodgy
149 4.7

Not in style, like clothes or ideas from an earlier time

adds an extra sense of dullness and resistance to change
stale
vsstodgy
32 3.1

Not new or interesting because of repetition

is more about being dull and resistant to change
stuffy
vsstodgy
  • Informal
31 5.6

Something old-fashioned and too serious in a way that makes it boring

is broader, also covering plain dullness and dislike of change
dusty
vsstodgy
11 6.5

Old and not interesting because it has no new ideas

is stronger, implying both dullness and refusal to modernize
staid
vsstodgy
9 6.8

Serious and respectable in a quiet way, not showy or lively

leans more toward being dull and resistant to novelty
mossy
vsstodgy
1 8.2

Old-fashioned in ideas or ways of doing things

adds a sense of lifelessness and unwillingness to change
bromidic
vsstodgy
9.9

Boring because it uses words or ideas people hear many times

focuses less on cliché and more on dated, unchanging manner
moss-grown
vsstodgy
  • Offensive
9.9

Old and out of date in ideas, opinions, or ways

is harsher, stressing dullness and resistance rather than mere age
mildewy
vsstodgy
7.3

Old-fashioned and stale in style or ideas

is more about plain dullness and refusal to adopt new ideas
fogyish
vsstodgy
  • Archaic
9.9

Having old ideas or rules that seem out of date

is less just style and more about being boring and unchanging

Antonyms

innovative
165 5.5

Having new ideas or methods to do things better

dynamic
155 4.2

Full of energy, new ideas, and constant activity

How Dull

stodgy
8 7.8
stuffy
  • Informal
31 5.6
old-fashioned
149 4.7
conventional
175 2.8

Surface Forms

stodgy positive

Morphology

stodgy = stodge (semi-transparent) = stodge + y

The adjectival form is derived from 'stodge', but the sense 'dull, old-fashioned' is a metaphorical extension from physical heaviness and is not fully literal.

Etymology

Stodgy comes from the same old word stodge, meaning 'thick' or 'solid', so a 'stodgy' person, style, or idea feels heavy, dull, and slow to change.