weakie
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English[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Noun[edit]
weakie (plural weakies)
- (US, colloquial) A weakfish.
- 1959, Henry Lyman, Frank Woolner, The Complete Book of Weakfishing, New York, N.Y.: A. S. Barnes and Company, page 44:
- Although the weakie has no chopping teeth comparable to those of a bluefish, he boasts a pair of extremely sharp canines in his upper jaw.
Etymology 2[edit]
Noun[edit]
weakie (plural weakies)
- (originally US, now chiefly Australia, slang) A weak, unreliable or mediocre person or thing; a weakling.
- 1955, D'Arcy Niland, The Shiralee, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson; The Book Society, pages 53–54:
- That was as far as Macauley would go. He wanted to set his shoulders and bunch his fists and let the words fly at O' Neill: You can spot the stranger that comes on a visit and mark him down; you can swagger the streets at shearing-time and reap a harvest; but don't lump me in with the weakies and the yellow-bellies busting their cheques over a good time; the curs and the possums who get silly-drunk and fall in fear to your authority.
- (especially chess and poker, rare) An unskilled player.
- Synonyms: (chess) patzer, (chess) woodpusher
- 2010, John Healy, Coffeehouse Chess Tactics: An Astonishing Trip Into the World of Competitive Chess, Alkmaar, Netherlands: New In Chess, page 17:
- And now we enter the real chess arena, where, haughty about ratings, everybody has only one thought in mind: to win — to pile up plaudits against the county grader's autumnal assessment. And to this end we all hope for a weaker opponent, but in the tournaments there are no outright weakies.
See also[edit]
not etymologically related
References[edit]
- Jonathon Green (2024) “weakie n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
- “weakie, n.1”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. - “weakie, n.2”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
