Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Weak, sentimental, or unrealistic.
- adjective Lacking vigor or decisiveness; weak or spineless.
- noun One that is weak, sentimental, or indecisive.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Silly verse; weakly sentimental writing or talk.
- Weakly sentimental; affectedly nice; insipid; vapid: as, namby-pamby rimes.
- To treat sentimentally; coddle.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Talk or writing which is weakly sentimental or affectedly pretty.
- adjective Affectedly pretty; weakly sentimental; finical; insipid.
- adjective Indecisive or weak; lacking firmness or resolve; -- of actions and policies.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Insipid and sentimental
- adjective Lacking vigor or decisiveness; spineless;
wishy-washy - noun One that is
insipid , sentimental, or weak.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective weak in willpower, courage or vitality
- noun an insipid weakling who is foolishly sentimental
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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I may be a namby-pamby townie of many years standing, but I grew up in the country, namely rural Rutland.
One law for townies and one for country folk | Barbara Ellen 2011
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You don't want Da to think you're what he calls a “namby-pamby gossoon,” do you?
Bedwetter James Claffey 2012
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My coworkers all think I'm a crazy gun toting redneck with an unusually high IQ, but you think I'm a namby-pamby liberal that's too stupid to join the obviously "right" far right.
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off 2009
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It will be stripped of "liberal shibboleths" – all that namby-pamby stuff about children expressing their creativity, presumably – in favour of no-nonsense drilling in literacy and numeracy, lots of sport and "martial values" of self-discipline and respect.
Here's an idea – let children think for themselves | Gaby Hinsliff 2011
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We are left with playground taunts, where rigorous skeptics are mocked as namby-pamby while unbelievers crown themselves "brights."
Christopher Lane: Two Ways Of Thinking About Agnosticism: Hitchens vs. Dawkins Christopher Lane 2012
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Look, I have been and continue to be very unhappy with the frequently namby-pamby responses of the Progressive movement to the liars and hypocrites at Faux News, Whirled Nuts Dully, and the Repugnantcons in general.
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He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a namby-pamby poet, a mincing metre ballad monger, any more than Shakspeare.
Sunday Salon: Robert Burns: ‘He held the plough or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp’ 2009
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BarCap knows what's wrong: a namby-pamby welfare stateLonger hours, harder work, greater discipline and far fewer namby-pamby social benefits.
Osborne's swipe at bankers and jet owners is diverting, but not much use 2011
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He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a namby-pamby poet, a mincing metre ballad monger, any more than Shakspeare.
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We are left with playground taunts, where rigorous skeptics are mocked as namby-pamby while unbelievers crown themselves "brights."
Christopher Lane: Two Ways Of Thinking About Agnosticism: Hitchens vs. Dawkins Christopher Lane 2012
sionnach commented on the word namby-pamby
Origin: 1726; rhyming compound based on the first syll. of Ambrose Philips; first used as a nickname for Philips in the title of a poem by Henry Carey (1687?–1743) ridiculing his verse
October 26, 2007
bilby commented on the word namby-pamby
Vexamples suggest it's a favoured epithet in fascist diatribe.
November 26, 2009