Stuffy means airless and close, or dull and formal. A stuffy room, stuffy nose, a stuffy institution.
Of a room it means warm and unventilated, and opening a window is the standard cure. Of a nose it means blocked. Of a person or an institution it means rigidly conventional and rather humourless — a stuffy old club — which is the figurative sense and much the commoner one in criticism. Note stuffiness; and stuffed up, which is the American way of saying the same about a nose.
1adjectivestuffyAirless and close.
“The room was stuffy at about twenty-four degrees.”
2adjectivedullDull and rigidly conventional.
“The club was full of stuffy old men who hated any kind of change.”
stuffy is a quality of closeness or formality.
Proto-West Germanic
*stoppōn — to clog up, block, fill
Old High German
stoffōn
Old French
estofe
Latin
stuffa
Middle English
stuf
English
stuff
English, today
stuffy
Built from
From stuff + -y. stuff comes from Middle English stuf, stuffe, from Anglo-Latin stuffa and its etymon Old French estofe, estoffe, estuf, estuffe, stoffe, from estoffer, estofer (“to provide what is necessary, equip, stuff”), borrowed from Old High German stoffōn, from Proto-West Germanic stoppōn (“to clog up, block, fill”). More at stop.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA