Stuck-up means acting as if you are better than everybody else. Nose in the air, and not stopping to talk.
It is informal and childish in origin, and it is one of the first social insults anybody learns at school. It describes manner rather than actual status, so somebody stuck-up may have nothing to be superior about. Snobbish is the more formal version and arrogant is the strongest. British English is unusually well supplied with words for this fault, which says something.
1adjectivestuck-upBehaving in a superior and unfriendly way.
“They thought she was stuck-up when really she was shy.”
Also accepted in games: snobbish, arrogant
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word