walter_mitty
Walter Mitty
noun, plural Walter Mittys.
an ordinary, timid person who is given to adventurous and self-aggrandizing daydreams or secret plans as a way of glamorizing a humdrum life.
Origin:
from the title character of James Thurber's short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939)
from the title character of James Thurber's short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939)
Related forms
Walter Mittyish, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases
Walter Mitty
A person, generally quite ordinary or ineffectual, who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs. For example, He's a Walter Mitty about riding in a rodeo but is actually afraid of horses. This term comes from James Thurber's short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1939), describing just such a character.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Cite This Source
00:10
Walter mitty
is always a great word to know.
So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:
| a fool or simpleton; ninny. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
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