1
as in bland
lacking in qualities that make for spirit and character
she's such a namby-pamby nothing that it's no wonder she's never asked out
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in weak
lacking strength of will or character
mocked namby-pamby intellectuals who endlessly debate the pros and cons of everything and invariably end up accomplishing nothing
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in coward
a person without strength of character
those namby-pambies at city hall are never going to get serious about our crime problem
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Recent Examples of namby-pamby
John B. Judis, The New Republic, 19 Mar. 2023
Adjective
Walzer’s dissent was namby-pamby.
—John B. Judis, The New Republic, 19 Mar. 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for namby-pamby
Adjective
-
Gigantic and often bland, the squash filled our grocery carts and vexed our dull knives for too many years.—
Alex Beggs,
Bon Appetit Magazine,
8 Apr. 2025
-
Then there are interviews, scoops, and other kinds of highly specific reporting; a reporter might labor for months to unearth new information, only for A.I. to hoover it up and fold it into some bland summary.—
Joshua Rothman,
New Yorker,
8 Apr. 2025
Adjective
-
However, a weaker dollar, resulting from tariffs and other policies, makes that harder for exporters.—
Brendan Coffey,
Sportico.com,
4 Apr. 2025
-
After seven episodes of pained teeth-gritting and wide-eyed astonishment, he’s found closure in confronting the man who killed his father (or not) and finding only a weak old guy too sickly to punch.—
Eliana Dockterman,
Time,
4 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
There is no way a coward like Musk is in a position to accuse Sen. Kelly of being a traitor.—
DP Opinion,
The Denver Post,
11 Mar. 2025
-
This is a cop novel that fully satisfies its genre expectations — chases, gun battles, sinister bad guys, questionable cops, cowards and heroes.—
Claude Peck,
Boston Herald,
16 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Anything that isn’t someone bleeding out is boring to them, that kind of thing.—
Maria Fontoura,
Rolling Stone,
5 Apr. 2025
-
But here, it’s all viewed through a workplace-comedy format, which captures the kind of boring ordinariness of typical medical care while also getting at some of the big frustrations of understaffing.—
Kathryn VanArendonk,
Vulture,
3 Apr. 2025
Adjective
-
Rande, 62, matched his wife's and daughter's soft elegance by wearing a classic black tux with a white collared shirt and back tie.—
Ingrid Vasquez,
People.com,
4 Apr. 2025
-
For starters, the bath products are thicker, softer, non-slip, and have drainage holes.—
Lauren Thomann,
Better Homes & Gardens,
3 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
But the character, in Groening’s view, turned out to be a wimp.—
Darryn King,
Vulture,
17 Dec. 2024
-
The hard labor of making Wabanaki baskets Wabanaki basket-making isn’t for wimps.—
Debra Utacia Krol,
USA TODAY,
29 Nov. 2024
Adjective
-
Bored of an increasingly insipid Premier League season?—
Nick Miller,
New York Times,
7 Apr. 2025
-
Performances range from bad to worse (Jude Law as Captain Hook is permanently running on fumes), Neverland is a dreary landscape of muted greens and browns, and the story becomes an insipid take on an adventurous classic.—
Barry Levitt,
TIME,
21 Mar. 2025
Noun
-
The fact these losers want to jail Andrew and Tristan Tate for preaching their version of traditional masculinity highlights the fact that these fascist feminists are fragile weaklings incapable of defending their position in the free marketplace of ideas.—
David Catanese,
Miami Herald,
20 Mar. 2025
-
In Europe the obvious weaklings are Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and DS.—
Neil Winton,
Forbes,
14 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Namby-pamby.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/namby-pamby. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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