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underpants gnome

noun

Etymology

Named for the Underpants Gnomes, characters in the South Park episode “Gnomes” (1998) who stole underpants from children as part of a plan to make a profit, but their plan lacked the means by which that profit was to be made.

Definitions

  1. Someone who makes incomplete plans with missing steps

    Someone who makes incomplete plans with missing steps; someone who plans unsuccessfully.

    • 2. ? 3. Profit! Do you think their plan is missing something? They know Success in Programming 53 There Is No Try It's a Question of Passion Don't Plan Like an Underpants Gnome.
    • ... an underpants gnome! Any time you read an inspiring news story, watch a YouTube video of somebody doing something amazing, or read a book like this one that encourages you to make changes in your life, you are collecting underpants.
    • Don't be an underpants gnome. Have a clear Step Two. You clearly need to make some profit, to be financially stable during your retirement, and you know how to do something, if only how to collect underpants. And you may have some more ...

  2. A plan with missing steps

    A plan with missing steps; an incomplete plan.

    • Like the rest of Trump World, Page brought a kind of Underpants Gnome theory to his bromance with Team Putin. Through some unknown alchemy, he expected to benefit Trump and gain influence and profit from his Russia foray.
    • […] is the Underpants Gnome theory of politics. It doesn't work. What works is a move from A to B, not A to Q to G to T to X to B. In 2008, desperate to reset a flailing campaign and find some way, any way, to interrupt the narrative […]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for underpants gnome. 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