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sad sack. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
sad sack, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
US 1920s. Popularized by Sad Sack, a cartoon character and eponymous comic strip published originally June 1942 in Yank, the Army Weekly, a US Army publication for soldiers, and later syndicated in the US 1940s and 1950s. Presumably from vulgar “sad sack of shit” as cartoonist Sgt. George Baker said he took it from a “longer phrase, of a derogatory nature”. The term originally referred to a well-meaning but inept soldier.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
sad sack (plural sad sacks) (chiefly US)
- An incompetent or inept person.
- A perennial failure or victim of misfortune.
- Synonyms: defeatist, loser
2010 July 26, Michiko Kakutani, “Love Found Amid Ruins of Empire”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:“Super Sad” takes as its Romeo and Juliet, its Tristan and Iseult, a middle-aged sad sack named Lenny Abramov and a much younger beauty named Eunice Park.
2013 April 27, “Movie capsules: Arthur Newman”, in Boston Globe, retrieved 5 April 2015:Weary of his drab life with its nowhere job, failed marriage, boring girlfriend, and estranged teenage son, a middle-aged sad sack fakes his death, changes his identity, and hits the road.
2024 May 20, Alissa Wilkinson, “What We Lose When ChatGPT Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:So Samantha, the A.I. assistant with whom the sad-sack divorcé Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) fell in love in “Her,” felt like a futuristic revelation.
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