Never-was

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who has never achieved success or popularity. derogatory, informal

    "They're saying Sonny Hayes isn't a has-been. He's a never-was."

Synonyms

All synonyms
has-beennever-benever-beennever-wozzer

Example

More examples

"It's better to be a has-been than a never-was."

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