fuddy-duddy

And not to be a fuddy-duddy, but I can think of many better uses, including using that desire to connect with people to motivate charity work, political organizing, or just throwing a dinner party.

From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2025

Showing the BBC around his former stomping ground, Harold's Café, he expressed confidence his cardigan-wearing "fuddy-duddy" character would live on.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2022

Second comes the flash of unexpected delight — surprise that an old fuddy-duddy cocktail your grandparents drank could taste so good.

From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2022

Dream movie moment: Cora, who sometimes seems a few scones short of a tea tray, wises up and leaves fuddy-duddy Robert for a dashing London financier played by Hugh Grant.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 10, 2019

Peacock But, I don't propose to marry my daughter to some old fuddy-duddy.

From La Tontine by Alain René Le Sage

We tend to think of people from long ago as credulous, unsophisticated fuddy-duddies.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 13, 2021

For self-consciously “edgy” believers, there’s Bad Christian, in which a pastor and two musicians razz each other and blast the fuddy-duddies who don’t get it.

From Slate ● Dec. 14, 2014

Even more startling, some of the fuddy-duddies in traditional media turn out to have a bigger millennial audience than Vice — including, uh, The New York Times, Mr. McDermott said..

From New York Times ● Oct. 10, 2014

English Heritage objected, but who cared about the complaints of culturally conservative fuddy-duddies?

From The Guardian ● Aug. 19, 2011

You used an expression, dear,—old fuddy-duddies, was it?

From Three Margarets by Etheldred B. (Etheldred Breeze) Barry