Word.ws English Dictionary

pamby

pamby is the clipping of namby-pamby.

Meaning of namby-pamby

Adjective

namby-pamby (comparative more namby-pamby or namby-pambier, superlative most namby-pamby or namby-pambiest)

  1. Insipid and sentimental.
  2. Lacking vigor or decisiveness; spineless; wishy-washy.
    • […] she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature […]1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Which Treats of the Osborne Family”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 383

See all 5 meanings of namby-pamby

Forms of pamby

Adjective
comparativemore pamby
superlativemost pamby
alternative formnamby
Noun
pluralpambies

Questions about pamby

What is pamby the clipping of?
Pamby is the clipping of namby-pamby.

Words near pamby in the dictionary

  1. Pambisan Malaki
  2. Pambisan Munti
  3. Pambujan
  4. Pambula
  5. Pambula Beach
  6. pamby
  7. Pamela
  8. Pamela hat
  9. Pamela hats
  10. Pamelyn
  11. pamerin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pamby (page history and authors); namby-pamby (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.

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Cite this entry: “pamby.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pamby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.