dismal science

noun

Etymology

Coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1849, a play on gay science (“poetry”).

Definitions

  1. Economics or the field of political economy.

    • [N]ot a "gay science," but a rueful—which finds the secret of this universe in "supply and demand" . . . a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.
    • Galbraith has managed to write with wit and style about the ‘dismal science’ of economics.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dismal science. 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