white-shoe
English
editEtymology
editFor the noun, from their traditional footwear. For the adjective, from the preponderance of Ivy League graduates hired by such firms.
Pronunciation
editAudio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
editwhite-shoe (plural white-shoes)
- (US, slang) A stereotypical male Ivy League college student.
Adjective
editwhite-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.