stick-in-the-mud

as in conservative
a person with old-fashioned ideas the committee is dominated by old stick-in-the-muds who have little interest in bringing new ideas to the table

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of stick-in-the-mud David Corenswet plays, quite literally, a stick-in-the-mud character. Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019 In the Herbert Ross film, Bacon played big-city teen Ren McCormack, who moves to the small town of Bomont, where its stick-in-the-mud local minster, the Rev. Shaw Moore (John Lithgow), has instituted a ban on dancing. EW.com, 9 Nov. 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stick-in-the-mud
Noun
  • What grievances have Trump and high-profile conservatives aired with U.S. banks? Criticism amongst conservatives and Republicans have long been aimed at banking institutions for imposing restrictions on firearms and other issues.
    Callum Sutherland, Time, 4 June 2025
  • Robby Soave delivers radar on a new study released by Nate Silver that suggests that 45 percent of liberal voters reported having poor mental health compared with 19 percent of conservatives.
    The Hill, The Hill, 4 June 2025
Noun
  • But the past couple of years have seen the team replace veterans with younger alternatives who offer greater positional versatility.
    Jeff Rueter, New York Times, 8 June 2025
  • Twenty-two a day has been a call-to-action statistic, although the most recent data from the 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report (using 2022 numbers) puts it at 17.6 veterans committing suicide per day, which is significantly higher than among non-veteran adults.
    Denise Crosby, Chicago Tribune, 8 June 2025
Noun
  • These are people who know AI and have grown up with this stuff that these old fogies haven't.
    Alison Snyder, Axios, 23 Feb. 2025
  • And some of us older fogies, Joni Mitchell and Carole King.
    Lars Brandle, Billboard, 10 Oct. 2023
Noun
  • However, the identity of the animal that left the fossils has remained a mystery, even as it [was] declared BC’s provincial fossil in 2023.
    Monica Cull, Discover Magazine, 23 May 2025
  • The vegetation found in the fossil deposit suggests multiple tsunamis occurred within the span of two million years, reports Hannah Richter for Science.
    Sara Hashemi, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 May 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Stick-in-the-mud.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stick-in-the-mud. Accessed 12 Jun. 2025.

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