Defeatist

adj, noun

adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Someone who advocates defeatism, or has such an attitude.
  2. 2
    someone who is resigned to defeat without offering positive suggestions wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to defeatism.

    "You may look ruefully at your poor red hands and think that just because they have got that way through the extra work you are doing there’s just nothing that can be done about it. Of course, this is a deafeatist attitude—and a lazy one too!"

Synonyms

All synonyms
calamity howlercassandracassandra-likecassandrancassandriancynic

Example

More examples

"You can't fight a good fight with such a defeatist attitude."

Etymology

From defeat + -ist, after French défaitiste.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.