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white-shoe. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
For the noun, from their traditional footwear. For the adjective, from the preponderance of Ivy League graduates hired by such firms.
Pronunciation
Noun
white-shoe (plural white-shoes)
- (US, slang) A stereotypical male Ivy League college student.
Adjective
white-shoe (comparative more white-shoe, superlative most white-shoe)
- (US, slang) Effeminate or immature.
- (US, slang) Establishment; pertaining to mainstream US social power-structures.
2007, Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, Penguin, published 2008, page 26:Dulles had been a junior diplomat after World War I and a white-shoe Wall Street lawyer in the Depression.
2017 September 19, Jennifer Szalai, “The Education of Ellen Pao”, in New York Times:In “Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change,” Ellen K. Pao traces a journey of disillusionment that culminated in the lawsuit she brought against her employer, the white-shoe venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for gender discrimination.
Derived terms