white-shoe
English edit
Etymology edit
For the noun, from their traditional footwear. For the adjective, from the preponderance of Ivy League graduates hired by such firms.
Pronunciation edit
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun edit
white-shoe (plural white-shoes)
- (US, slang) A stereotypical male Ivy League college student.
Adjective edit
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[1]:
- 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.