stick-in-the-mud
[f. vbl. phr. to stick in the mud: see stick v.1 11 b.]
Contemptuously used for: A helpless or unprogressive person; one who lacks resource or initiative.
| 1733 Gen. Evening Post 15–17 Nov. 2/1 George Fluster, alias Stick in the Mud, has made himself an Evidence, and impeached the above two Persons. 1733 Country Jrnl. 15 Dec. 2/1 James Baker, alias Stick in the Mud, and Francis Ogilby [were convicted]. 1861 Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. x, This rusty-coloured one is that respectable old stick-in-the-mud, Nicias. 1886 W. H. Mallock Old Order Changes I. 280 She is such an old stick-in-the-mud. |
| attrib. 1880 St. James's Gaz. 23 Oct. 12 He was none of your humdrum, stick-in-the-mud, oldfashioned practitioners. 1886 Stevenson Kidnapped v, What a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket..and surprise what he called stick-in-the-mud boys. |
Hence
stick-in-the-muddish a.| 1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind xxviii. 481 It wasn't hidebound and stick-in-the-muddish like the older towns and it had a brash exuberance that matched her own. 1959 A. Salkey Quality of Violence x. 158 He's slow and easy and a little ‘stick-in-the-muddish’. |