What s An Empty Suit?

What's An 'Empty Suit' - And Are You Becoming One?
Liz RyanFormer Contributor
Dec 12, 2015,10:10pm EST
Dear Liz,

I am twenty-seven and in my first corporate role. I worked in my family's business when I first finished college (and actually much earlier than that) and it was great, but I wanted to see more of the world.

Now I work for a public accounting firm. I hear a lot of jargon that I never heard in my family's business. One term I've heard a few times is "empty suit." One of our partners will say about someone [like a client they've been dealing with] "Well, he's an empty suit, but he's the guy they've assigned to our project so we have to deal with him."

What is an empty suit? Thanks for helping me learn a new language!

Yours,

PROMOTED

Aaron

Dear Aaron,

An empty suit is a person who follows the script that his or her job title requires, and doesn't know who he or she is beyond that. There are lot of empty suits in the business and institutional worlds. There are plenty of them in the start-up and not-for-profit worlds, too.

An empty suit is someone who says exactly what anybody in his or her position would say in every imaginable situation. They don't take a stand on anything. If you want to know this person's opinion on any topic, just ask the empty suit's boss what he or she thinks.

The empty-suit person's opinion is identical to his or her boss's opinion!

The sad truth is that fear is the great unaddressed topic in the workplace. The empty suit phenomenon springs from fear. When a person is afraid to bring himself or herself to work and say what s/he truly believes, everybody else in the workplace can tell.


Instead of a living, breathing colleague there's an empty suit sitting at the conference table spouting business jargon. Empty suits are tough co-workers to have. They wear you out.

Because I was responsible for hiring I am happy that I've worked with very few empty suits but I have interviewed hundreds of them.

You can get a strong whiff of empty-suit-ism from a person like that the instant he or she walks into the room.

When you ask this type of person how they feel about a topic, they quote to you from a famous business author's book. If you ask, as I did, "Apart from what the author said, what do YOU think?" they will stare at you blankly. They don't form opinions. They collect other people's opinions, instead.

Whatever you do in your life and career, Aaron, take care to listen to your body and tell the truth when your body tells you to. Sometimes it will feel a little scary to speak up but I promise you -- it will feel less scary every time you do it.

You'll never become an empty suit if you stay on your own path instead of worrying about your job title or your boss's opinion of you or where you stand on the company's internal stock index. Stay true to yourself and no one will ever call you an empty suit, I can guarantee.

Everyone will not agree with you on every point and some people won't care for your brand of jazz at all, but so what? You dont'need the whole world to love you or approve of you. Only the people who get you, deserve you.

Hurrah for you, Aaron!

I predict great things in your future -

Best,

Liz

***
empty suit noun

Definition of empty suit: an ineffectual executive


Trump’s team has tried to paint Biden as an empty suit trying to disguise the threat of socialism.
— Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 29 Sep. 2020
When Lukashenko first rose to power in 1994, the budding autocrat was perceived as little more than a dolt, an empty suit, a pig farmer who few in Minsk’s political ranks took seriously.
— Casey Michel, The New Republic, 10 Aug. 2020
In the iconic drama that ran on CBS between 1957 and 1966, Raymond Burr’s broad shoulders filled out the empty suit.
— Judy Berman, Time, 11 June 2020
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These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'empty suit.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors.

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First Known Use of empty suit
1950, in the meaning defined above

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The first known use of empty suit was in 1950
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Dictionary Entries Near empty suit
empty out

empty suit


“Empty suit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty. Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.

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empty suit
Well-dressed but shallow or ineffective people, particularly in the context of higher-level male corporate employees or executives

That dickhead can't decide anything.He is such an empty suit
by makepar March 27, 2007


empty suit

Someone puffed up with his own importance but really having little effect on the lives of others. It is often used as an insult to disparage others who really don’t deserve the title. The true empty suit, which conjures up the image of a business suit of clothing without a person, really doesn’t know what he or she is doing. He or she is ineffectual, perhaps a phony, and is about as relevant or helpful as a suit hanging on a rack.

To call someone an empty suit implies that you think they are a complete waste of time. Editorials on politicians love to use the term empty suit to describe people seeking presidential office. This or that politician is just “an empty suit,” to quote the words of numerous political critics, and is thus undeserving of our attention.

Some politicians do deserve the title. A senator with a very poor voting record, or failure to attend senate sessions could clearly be called an empty suit because he is not really performing the job for which he was elected. On the other hand, some politicians may advertise themselves as “not just an empty suit” in order to distinguish themselves from their implied empty suit peers.
Barack Obama is a real empty suit. He's never accomplished anything of importance as a politician, yet he earns the praise of millions of United States citizens.

empty suit
a person of seeming distinction who is actually a product of Publicity
Andrew Wakefield is an empty suit. His study was discredited.

empty suit

At least McCain isn't an empty suit.
by Chaz Michael Michael August 29, 2008


A politician who seeks public office, purporting to hold a certain set of beliefs, but in reality, Is nothing more than pandering simpleton.

Mitt Romney is no conservative, he's just an empty suit with a blue tie.

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pander verb
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pan·;der | \ ;pan-d;r  \
pandered; pandering\ ;pan-;d(;-;)ri;  \
Definition of pander (Entry 1 of 2)
intransitive verb

: to act as a pander
especially : to provide gratification for others' desires
films that pander to the basest emotions
… used his brilliant gifts to pander to popular taste.
— Hubert Saal
pander noun
Definition of pander (Entry 2 of 2)
1a: a go-between in love intrigues
b: PIMP
2: someone who caters to or exploits the weaknesses of others

Other Words from pander
Synonyms
Distinctive Meanings of Procure
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Verb

panderer \ ;pan-;d;r-;;r  \ noun
Synonyms for pander
Synonyms: Noun

cadet [slang], fancy man, pimp, procurer
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Distinctive Meanings of Procure
Procure, like many other English words, has a split personality. On the one hand, it may carry a perfectly benign meaning, such as "to obtain" (“she procured supplies”) or "to bring about" (“the settlement was successfully procured”). On the other hand, it has long been used in the specific sense of obtaining someone for, or bringing about, sexually promiscuous purposes. In this regard it is similar to the word pander, which entered the English language with the innocent meaning “a go-between in love intrigues” (the word comes from the name Pandare, a character in Chaucer’s poem Troilus and Criseyde who facilitates the affair between the titular characters), and soon after took on the meaning “pimp.”


Examples of pander in a Sentence
Noun
 an arrest record that revealed that he had variously been a pander, a pickpocket, and a drug dealer
Recent Examples on the Web: Verb
LaRose said the reorganization isn’t a way to pander to those views, which have included conspiracy theories in pro-Trump circles about Ohio’s 2020 election, even though Trump won the state by 8 points.
— Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland, 5 Oct. 2022
Far-right and authoritarian regimes were able to seize on these divisions, and on the disruptions caused by World War I and the Great Depression, to pander to voters unsatisfied with the current order and eager for a change, according to Florea.
— Bytristan Bove, Fortune, 2 Oct. 2022
With a razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate, many felt Manchin was holding life-saving action on the climate crisis hostage to pander to fossil fuel interests, the energy status quo and the coal and gas-based economy of his home state.
— Joan Meiners, The Arizona Republic, 4 Aug. 2022
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These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'pander.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of pander
Verb

1523, in the meaning defined above

Noun

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

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sim·ple·ton
[;simp;lt(;)n]

NOUN
a foolish or gullible person:
"stop grinning at me like a simpleton"
SIMILAR:
fool
nincompoop
dunce
dullard
ignoramus

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noun
Einfaltspinsel
Dummling