Word.ws English Dictionary

sad trombone

sad trombone interjection: used to indicate failure or disappointment.

Interjection

  1. (humorous) Used to indicate failure or disappointment.
    • Last week the Wall Street Journal reported LP sales surged 49 percent last year and that factories are struggling to keep pace, but in the end, vinyl sales represent only 2 percent of U.S. music sales (*sad trombone*).2014, Tim McMahan, “All About Survival and Spotify”, in The Reader, 25 December - 31 December 2014, page 11
    • Any time a player's token lands on the top of a chute, the token must "slide" down to the final square where that chute is pictured (sad trombone).2019 January 31, “Chutes and Ladders: Legislative Bill Edition”, in City Weekly, page 10

Synonyms of sad trombone

Origin of sad trombone

From a plaintive trombone (or sometimes trumpet) sting played during game shows to indicate a player losing.

Questions about sad trombone

What does sad trombone mean?
Sad trombone means used to indicate failure or disappointment.
What part of speech is sad trombone?
Sad trombone is an interjection.

Words near sad trombone in the dictionary

  1. sad sack
  2. sad sacks
  3. sad to say
  4. sad tree
  5. sad trees
  6. sad trombone
  7. sad-cited
  8. sad-com
  9. sad-coms
  10. sad-eyed
  11. sad-faced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sad trombone (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sad trombone.wav.

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