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Discover LudwigThe phrase "empty suit" is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used to describe someone, often in a corporate or professional context, who lacks substance, competence, or real authority despite holding a position of power.
Example: "The board was frustrated with the CEO, who seemed more like an empty suit than a leader capable of driving the company forward."
Alternatives: "figurehead" or "paper tiger."
Dictionary
empty suit
noun
A person ineffective or incompetent in his/her position of authority. Derived from unfavorable observations that ineffective professionals are memorable only for what they wear and not what they accomplish at the workplace. c. 1970
Exact(60)
It became an empty suit.
(Mr. Bloomberg is an empty suit).
I see Ryan as an empty suit.
"Conceited, a pretty-boy empty suit.
Mr Jaitley sneers that "Rahul Gandhi is an empty suit.
"In Iraq, Uncle Sam was an empty suit".
But no amount of stagecraft alone can fill the empty suit.
The cartoon should have been an empty suit debating an empty chair," Donna McGough wrote.
He basically called George W. Bush a fraud, a sleaze artist and an empty suit.
Neither Mr. Gore nor Mr. Bush is the stereotypical empty suit manipulated by handlers.
In focus groups, he's described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans.
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Since I tried Ludwig back in 2017, I have been constantly using it in both editing and translation. Ever since, I suggest it to my translators at ProSciEditing.

Justyna Jupowicz-Kozak
CEO of Professional Science Editing for Scientists @ prosciediting.com