Show Me State

See also: Show-Me State

English

Etymology

Uncertain, but often attributed to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who in a speech in Philadelphia in 1899 declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."

Proper noun

the Show Me State

  1. Official nickname for Missouri: a state of the United States.