put on airs

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Behave as if one is superior to others

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

hành động như thể mình vượt trội hơn người khác

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: put air on something
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She started putting on airs after getting the promotion

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “put on airs” mean?

Behave as if one is superior to others Literally: put air on something

Is “put on airs” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.