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loser

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Loser, löser, and løser

English

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The runner in black is the loser.

Etymology

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Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *lewh₁-
Proto-Indo-European *lewHs-der.
Proto-Germanic *leusaną
Proto-Germanic *lusą
Proto-West Germanic *los
Old English losdenom.
Old English losian
Middle English losen
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂
Proto-Indo-European *-os?
Proto-Indo-European *-o-
Proto-Indo-European *-so-
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂so-
Proto-Indo-European *-yós
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂s(i)yós
Proto-Italic *-āsijos
Proto-Italic *-āsios
Latin -āriusnom.
Latin -āriusbor.
Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz
Proto-West Germanic *-ārī
Old English -ere
Middle English -ere
Middle English losere
English loser

    From Middle English loser, losere, equivalent to lose +‎ -er. In the sense of contemptible or worthless individual, perhaps an alteration of losel, which see.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    loser (plural losers)

    1. A person who loses; one who fails to win or thrive.
      Antonym: winner
      In a two-horse race there is always one winner and one loser.
      He was always a good loser.
    2. Something of poor quality.
    3. A person who is frequently unsuccessful in life.
      Synonym: failure
      That guy is a born loser!
      I'm a constant loser in love.
    4. (derogatory) A contemptible or unfashionable person.
      Synonyms: crumb, (archaic) losel, louse; see also Thesaurus:worthless person
      • 2012, Frank Shamrock, Charles Fleming, “Fatherhood”, in Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter, Chicago Review Press, →ISBN, page 203:
        Mike didn't work but insisted that Jewell have a job. He would stay home and do whatever — smoke pot, screw around. He was a total loser, and she picked up the slack. That's around the time that Mom met her soon-to-be-next husband. He immediately moved in. He was a loser, too, with the same work ethic Mike had.
    5. One who or that which loses something, such as extra weight, car keys, etc.
      • 1999, Larry Medsker, Lakhmi C. Jain, Recurrent Neural Networks: Design and Applications, →ISBN, page 192:
        Another way to speed search (in general) is to order or bias the hypothesis space based on some heuristic. Suppose you are a habitual car key loser and that you keep track of where your keys turn up after each search.
      • 2004, Marianna S. Katona, Tales from the Berlin Wall: Recollections of Frequent Crossings, →ISBN:
        But a West German reporting a lost passport in East Berlin during the years of the Wall was treated to a criminal investigation, with the passport loser as the potential criminal.
      • 2005, Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, The Biggest Loser: The Weight Loss Program to Transform Your Body, Health and Life, →ISBN:
      • 2009, Jane Bryant Quinn, Making the Most of Your Money Now:
        You're counting on this insurance company to pay you a check many years in the future. But for some companies, disability coverage has been a money loser.
      • 2010, Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost, One Byte at a Time, →ISBN, page 109:
        You have to think of yourself as an already amazing person who's hiding behind extra weight—a superhero in a disguise. If you follow the program, […] change the message from “I'm a big loser” to “I'm a big weight loser.”
    7. A losing proposition, one that is likely to lose or already has lost (such as a losing bet or, analogously, a predictably fruitless task or errand).
      • 1988, Alice Taylor, To School Through the Fields: An Irish Country Childhood, Brandon Ltd, →ISBN, page 58:
        A new Guard came to town and decided to flex his muscles with George. We could have told him that he was on a loser but bright young men, then as now, know it all.
      • 2001, Peter Svoboda, Beating the Casinos at Their Own Game‎[1], Square One Publishers, →ISBN, page 57:
        Hardway bets are losers if they are rolled in any other combination—called "soft" or "easy" numbers. For instance, a Hardway bet on a 4 is a loser if the dice show as 3 and 1. Betting on a Hard 8 is a loser if the dice are rolled as a 5 and 3, or a 6 and 2. Naturally, if the 7 is rolled before the Hardway number shows, the bet is also a loser.
      • 2021 December 17, Eric Ralph, “SpaceX to replicate Starbase, build multiple Starship launch pads in Florida”, in Teslarati‎[2], retrieved 7 August 2022:
        In terms of betting on outcomes, Mars is a clear loser.
    8. (slang) A person convicted of a crime, especially more than once.
      He's a three-time loser doing twenty years.

    Hyponyms

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    Derived terms

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    Descendants

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    • → Burmese: လူဇာ (luja)
    • → German: Loser
    • → Korean: 루저 (rujeo)
    • → Latvian: lūzers
    • → Russian: лу́зер (lúzer)

    Translations

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    Anagrams

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    Dutch

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    Etymology

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    Borrowed from English loser.

    Pronunciation

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    • Audio:(file)
    • Hyphenation: lo‧ser

    Noun

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    loser m (plural losers, diminutive losertje n)

    1. loser

    Synonyms

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    French

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    Alternative forms

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    Etymology

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      Unadapted borrowing from English loser.

      Pronunciation

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      Noun

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      loser m (plural losers)

      1. (colloquial) loser
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      German

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      Pronunciation

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      Adjective

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      loser

      1. comparative degree of lose
      2. inflection of lose:
        1. strong/mixed nominative masculine singular
        2. strong genitive/dative feminine singular
        3. strong genitive plural

      Norwegian Bokmål

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      Noun

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      loser m

      1. indefinite plural of los
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