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Glite Dictionary
name dropper

name dropper

1 8.1
A person who mentions famous people to seem important
  • noun
  • /neɪm ˈdrɒpər/
  • Offensive
translation icon : presumidor
  • You little name-dropper, you!

Examples

  • Washington is packed with name droppers.

    Blog text (5)

  • I hate to be a name-dropper, but once I almost picked up Mike Nichols.

    Skip Tracer (1977)

  • He's such a name dropper; he always mentions his celebrity friends during conversations.

  • At the party, I noticed a few name droppers trying to impress others with their connections.

  • As a name dropper, she often casually mentions the famous people she knows to gain attention.

Synonyms

fame digger
vsname dropper
  • Offensive
9.1

A person who tries to get noticed by being with famous people or doing things to get attention

focuses on pretending personal ties to famous people to impress others

Surface Forms

name dropper singular
name droppers plural

Morphology

name + dropper

The compound clearly decomposes as 'name' + agentive '-dropper' so a learner can infer 'someone who drops names', but understanding that 'drop' here means 'mention casually (often to impress)' relies on the idiomatic verb sense 'name-drop'. Because the specific pragmatic purpose (bragging or trying to impress) is not fully predictable from the literal parts without exposure to that verb usage, the item is best classified as semi-transparent.

Etymology

The noun name dropper comes from the image of someone who casually drops famous names into a conversation to seem important. So, a name dropper means 'a person who mentions famous people to impress others'.