shirt-sleeve

adjective

Having an informal, relaxed appearance or approach, particularly in business.

“He had a shirt-sleeve style of management.”

Meanings

adjectiveshirt-sleeve (not comparable)
  1. not comparableHaving an informal, relaxed appearance or approach, particularly in business.

    He had a shirt-sleeve style of management.

  2. not comparablespace flightThat allows working without the need of wearing a spacesuit.

    The Exploration Cooling Garment shall allow a crewmember to maintain their nominal shirt-sleeve range of motion.

    2008, Janet Ferl, Linda Hewes, Lindsay Aitchinson, Victor Koscheyev, Gloria Leon, Ed Hodgson, Frank Sneeringer, “Trade Study of an Exploration Cooling Garment”, in 38th International Conference on Environmental Systems, San Francisco, CA, USA, →DOI, →ISSN
nounshirt-sleeve (plural shirt-sleeves)

plural shirt-sleeves

  1. alternativeAlternative form of shirt sleeve.

    Not one of those rustic wassals of the Ouse of Widdlers, but ad his air curled and his shirt-sleaves tied up with pink ribbing as he led to the macy dance some appy country gal, with a black velvit boddice and a redd or yaller petticoat, a hormylu cross on her neck, and a silver harrow in her air!

    1872, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond
    1 more example

    But Dick's necessity of behaving as he did was a projection of some submerged reality: he was compelled to walk there, or stand there, his shirt-sleeve fitting his wrist and his coat sleeve encasing his shirt-sleeve like a sleeve valve, his collar moulded plastically to his neck, his red hair cut exactly, his hand holding his small briefcase like a dandy—just as another man once found it necessary to stand in front of a church in Ferrara, in sackcloth and ashes.

    1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter VIII, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1951, →OCLC, book III (Casualties: 1925), page 153

Origin

The adjective sense is derived from the practice of taking one’s jacket off and relaxing in shirt sleeves.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

shirt-sleeve. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shirt-sleeve

MLA

“shirt-sleeve.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shirt-sleeve. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shirt-sleeve,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shirt-sleeve.

Source: shirt-sleeve on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.