Walter Mitty
/wɔːltə ˈmɪti
/noun [often as modifier]
A person who fantasizes about a life much more exciting and glamorous than their own: my client is very much a Walter Mitty character...
- Did this man whose entire life has been spent as an office worker in dull and colorless businesses in rural Pennsylvania just suddenly have a Walter Mitty fantasy that happened to come true?
- John Brown is an out-and-out liar for all the reasons that I see printed in comments before mine, which came to mind as I read this Walter Mitty fantasy.
- Was he a good man or was he a Walter Mitty fantasist?
Origin
The hero of the story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (by James Thurber, 1939), who indulged in extravagant daydreams of his own triumphs.