loser

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See also: Loser, löser, and løser

English[edit]

The runner in black is the loser.

Etymology[edit]

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[edit]

Noun[edit]

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 2022-08-07:
      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[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English loser.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: lo‧ser

Noun[edit]

loser m (plural losers, diminutive losertje n)

  1. loser

Synonyms[edit]

French[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English loser.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

loser m (plural losers)

  1. (colloquial) loser

German[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

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[edit]

Noun[edit]

loser m

  1. indefinite plural of los
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