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wimp

noun
/wɪmp/

Etymology

Possibly a clipping of whimper. The term was understood in the United States by the 1930s, as it was incorporated into the names of two famous media characters known for living up to that name: The devious but cowardly Popeye supporting-character called "J. Wellington Wimpy", and the soft-spoken character "Wallace Wimple" from the radio show Fibber McGee and Molly.

Definitions

  1. Someone who lacks confidence or courage, is weak, ineffectual, irresolute and wishy-washy.

    • (see title)

  2. To behave submissively.

    • "They were wimping along and I was accomplished," she asserts with some pride and a touch of arrogance.

  3. To make (something) weak or wimpy.

    • If you're particularly fond of Foster's, Heineken or Moosehead at home, you will be disappointed to find that it's been wimped down for the American market.
  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. Weak, wimpy.

    2. Alternative letter-case form of WIMP.

    3. Acronym of weakly interacting massive particle.

    4. Acronym of window, icon, menu, pointer, a graphical interface paradigm.

    5. Acronym of window-icon-mouse program.

    6. Initialism of Windows, Internet Information Services, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP/Perl/Python.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for wimp. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA