"Debbie Downer" meaning in English

See Debbie Downer in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Debbie Downers [plural]
Etymology: Popularized as the name of a recurring character on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. Head templates: {{en-noun|head=Debbie Downer}} Debbie Downer (plural Debbie Downers)
  1. (informal, derogatory) A naysayer; one whose negative remarks depress or dissuade others. Wikipedia link: Debbie Downer, Saturday Night Live Tags: derogatory, informal Categories (topical): People, Personality Synonyms: negative Nancy, negative Nelly Related terms: doubting Thomas, gloomy Gus

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for Debbie Downer meaning in English (2.3kB)

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  "etymology_text": "Popularized as the name of a recurring character on the comedy show Saturday Night Live.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "Debbie Downers",
      "tags": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but…",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, Thomas L. Norris, A Fresh Cup of Counseling, Wipf and Stock Publishers",
          "text": "Everyone has met a Debbie Downer. They are filled with complaints, see everything darkly, and feel like a victim of life. And that is the energy they bring to themselves.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A naysayer; one whose negative remarks depress or dissuade others."
      ],
      "id": "en-Debbie_Downer-en-noun-7SksLDU1",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, derogatory) A naysayer; one whose negative remarks depress or dissuade others."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "doubting Thomas"
        },
        {
          "word": "gloomy Gus"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "negative Nancy"
        },
        {
          "word": "negative Nelly"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "informal"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
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  "word": "Debbie Downer"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Popularized as the name of a recurring character on the comedy show Saturday Night Live.",
  "forms": [
    {
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      "tags": [
        "plural"
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    }
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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    {
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    {
      "word": "gloomy Gus"
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        "en:Personality"
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          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, Thomas L. Norris, A Fresh Cup of Counseling, Wipf and Stock Publishers",
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        }
      ],
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        "A naysayer; one whose negative remarks depress or dissuade others."
      ],
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, derogatory) A naysayer; one whose negative remarks depress or dissuade others."
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        "derogatory",
        "informal"
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        "Debbie Downer",
        "Saturday Night Live"
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  "synonyms": [
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      "word": "negative Nancy"
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    {
      "word": "negative Nelly"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Debbie Downer"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (e268c0e and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.