Ne'er-do-well

//ˈnɛə.duˌwɛl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person without a means of support; an idle, worthless person; a loafer; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; a good-for-nothing.

    "So they have trooped forth to organize village down-and-outs and ne'er-do-wells into would-be combat units."

  2. 2
    an idle worthless person wordnet
  3. 3
    A person who is up to no good; a rogue.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Showing the characteristics of a ne'er-do-well: indolent, worthless, or roguish.

    "The brother who sought me out and would have redeemed me from the power of darkness, but he couldn't; and has robbed himself of joy and comfort in life to keep his ne'er-do-well brother from starvation; who has paid his debts over and taken him out of jail again and again...."

Synonyms

All synonyms
agitatorblackguardblatherskitecarrioncrumbdoink

Example

More examples

"At home she behaves well but at school she's a ne'er-do-well."

Etymology

From the phrase never do well. "Ne'er-do-well" is a contracted compound word stemming from the combination of the words "never do well." “Never-do-well” is sometimes used as an offhand, expanded version of the phrase, where “never” is not contracted. The usage of this version is often attributed to the northeastern United States.

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