wimp n.1
1. (also wimpo) a weakling, an indecisive person.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 14 July 7: (?) [Cartoon: ‘Them Was the Happy Days’ by C. V. Dwiggins] You always did dress like a wimp [...] remember that pinafore with the big pearl buttons ha! ha! ha! | |
| Hand-made Fables 97: Next day he sought out the dejected Wimp who was hungering for the Eastern Hemisphere. | |
| ‘Little Boy Blooey’ in Ten Story Sports July 🌐 Say, lemme tell you wise wimps somethin’. | |
| et al. CUSS 222: Wimp / alt. Whimp / A person without much social or academic ability. An ugly person, male. A person who studies a great deal. An effeminate male. A small or insignificant person. | |
| Time 9 Feb. 60: The sensitive, unathletic kid refused to stifle his artistic instincts. He served as president of the Art Association (‘Twenty of us little wimps reading Artforum’, says Wheelwright). | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Tracks (Aus.) Aug. 3: You gutless wimps think you own the beach in your half-filled sluggoes and white thongs [Moore 1993]. | |
| Homeboy 225: John Henry was a wimp next to these two ironheads. | |
 | Dandy Book n.p.: ‘Bye, wimpo!’. | |
| Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Lifts are no more for me [...] lifts are for wimps. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Indep. Rev. 19 June 3: Britain is creating a generation of teenage wimps. | |
| ‘Secret Identities’ Oz ser. 3 ep. 7 [TV script] If I’m invulnerable [...] why would I disguise myself as a four-eyed wimp? | |
| Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] ‘I hear the surfies call it the Blue Balls Coast.’ ‘Wimps,’ Cashin said. | |
| Londonstani (2007) 26: I was a ponce, I acted an sounded like a batty, I was a skinny wimp. | |
| Life 49: You can’t explain that you spend the whole day worrying [...] Wimps do that. | |
| August Snow [ebook] ‘Spiegelman’s a wimp who spent his career [...] taking Eleanor’s orders like a Chinese laundry boy’. |
2. a fellow, a man, with no pej. implications.
| Sandusky (OH) Star-Journal 6 Mar. 12: (?) Next to the man who is brave enough to go to a dance without wearing suspenders we believe the party entitled to the Croix de Guerre is the wimp who eats roasted chestnuts in the dark. | |
| Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 2 Oct. 4: Some chaps are born great, others get that way and still others have spotlights thrust upon ’em. But there is still a crushing percentage of wimps that will never run one, two, three in the Greatness league. |
In derivatives
(orig. US) ineffectual and/or effeminate.
| Arrowsmith 311: Wimpish little men with spectacles. |
In compounds
(US juv.) a general pej.
| Because the Night 40: 1956. Scarsdale, New York. Johnny Havilland, age eleven, known as ‘Spaz,’ ‘Wimpdick,’ and ‘Shitstick.’. |
(US campus) a male with little personality or assertiveness.
| Campus Sl. Spring. | |
| You Gotta Play Hurt 150: Another groan from the gallery. ‘You wimp dog!’ said Jeannie. | |
| Sl. and Sociability 70: Dog is often the second member of a compound or phrase: [...] wimp dog ‘male with little personality.’. |
a coward, a weakling.
| [personal communication]. |
cowardice, evasion.
| New Musical Express 3 June at backpages.com 🌐 There’s still a miraculously high energy level – no wimp-out, Jack; believe it – but what it’s about now is going berserk and enjoying yourself. |
In phrases
(orig. US) to act in a cowardly manner, to let someone down, to fail to live up to a commitment.
| et al. CUSS 222: Wimp out Be excessively submissive to your girl friend. | |
| Campus Sl. Fall 7: wimp out – back out of a situation. | |
| Pretty in Pink 100: Prince Charming wimp out? | |
| Native Tongue 216: You mean, they wimped out. | |
| My War (2006) 23: A lot of people change their minds, wimp out, jump ship [etc.]. |