miserabilist
/ˈmɪzəɹəbəlɪst/
miserabilist noun: one who is unhappy, or extols being miserable as a virtue; a philosopher of pessimism.
Noun
miserabilist (plural miserabilists)
- One who is unhappy, or extols being miserable as a virtue; a philosopher of pessimism.
- Gissing is never more of a miserabilist than when trying to be light-hearted.1991, Anthony Powell, Under review: further writings on writers, 1946-1989, page 242
- An old, failed actor who lived on his own, he never had friends dropping by, because he was a bedridden inconsiderate miserabilist.2006, Iain Sinclair, London: city of disappearances, page 314
- Synonyms:
- buzzkill, killjoy, spoilsport, addle-plot, cold fish, curmudgeon, dampener, downer, fun sponge, grinch
Adjective
miserabilist (comparative more miserabilist, superlative most miserabilist)
- Miserable, pessimistic.
- This is a radical difference between the naturalism of the miserabilist approach, and the naturalism practiced by the Romanian New Wave.2014, Doru Pop, Romanian New Wave Cinema: An Introduction, McFarland, →ISBN, page 61
Examples of miserabilist in a sentence
- The former Smiths singer, professional miserabilist, vegetarian and gladioli-distributor has posed nude for the inner sleeve artwork for his new single, Heaven Knows I'm Naked Now.2009 February 7, Lucy Mangan, “Lucy Mangan: This week”, in The Guardian:
- She said center-right French politicians have started disparaging climate activists as “miserabilists”, […]2021 November 21, Oliver Milman, quoting Catherine Fieschi, “Climate denial is waning on the right. What’s replacing it might be just as...
Synonyms of miserabilist
8 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of miserabilist
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | miserabilists |
| alternative form | miserablist |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more miserabilist |
| superlative | most miserabilist |
Origin of miserabilist
Variant of miserable + -ist, with interconsonant -i- added due to difficulty or lack of flow in pronouncing miserablist.
Questions about miserabilist
- What does miserabilist mean?
- Miserabilist means one who is unhappy, or extols being miserable as a virtue; a philosopher of pessimism.
- How do you use miserabilist in a sentence?
- The former Smiths singer, professional miserabilist, vegetarian and gladioli-distributor has posed nude for the inner sleeve artwork for his new single, Heaven Knows I'm Naked Now.
- What part of speech is miserabilist?
- Miserabilist can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce miserabilist?
- Miserabilist is pronounced /ˈmɪzəɹəbəlɪst/.
- What is the plural of miserabilist?
- The plural of miserabilist is miserabilists.
Words near miserabilist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: miserabilist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-miserabilist.wav.
Cite this entry: “miserabilist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/miserabilist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.