Word.ws English Dictionary

wishy-washy

UK/ˈwɪʃ.iˌwɒʃ.i//ˈwɪʃ.iˌwɑ.ʃi/

wishy-washy adjective: wavering; lacking in commitment, certainty, support, and (often) clarity; namby-pamby.

Adjective

wishy-washy (comparative wishy-washier or more wishy-washy, superlative wishy-washiest or most wishy-washy)

  1. Wavering; lacking in commitment, certainty, support, and (often) clarity; namby-pamby.
    • Near-synonyms: vacillating, vacillatory
    • Not wanting to be pressed for details, public relations gave a wishy-washy answer.
  2. Thin or watery.
    • Near-synonyms: watered-down, diluted, dilute
    • The wishy-washy orange juice served by the cafeteria not only failed to be sweet; it was barely orange.

wishy-washy meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

wishy-washy in Urdu

بےمزہ, بزدل, ڈھیلا, کمزور, پھیکا, رقیق

wishy-washy in Malayalam

ineffectual, feeble, weak
ദുർബ്ബല, കരുത്തുകുറഞ്ഞ, അകല്പ, ക്ഷീണിതം, ശക്തിക്ഷയിച്ച, പ്രയോജനശൂന്യമായ
weak, watery, thin
ജലമയമായ, ജലാംശം കൂടുതലുള്ള, നേർത്തതും വീര്യം കുറഞ്ഞതുമായ, കട്ടിയില്ലാത്ത, കൊഴുപ്പില്ലാത്ത, കടുപ്പമില്ലാത്ത
insipid, pale, pallid
മങ്ങിയ, വിളറിയ, വിവർണ്ണമായ, വർണ്ണരഹിതമായ, നിർവീര്യം, നിറമില്ലാത്ത

Examples of wishy-washy in a sentence

  • A drink of first class, aged whisky would be ridiculed in most parts of Maine as a wishy-washy beverage fit only for mollycoddles.1915, “Maine booze turns an iron tub blue”, in The Mixer and Server:
  • And you will appreciate drinking the hot cup, or rather billy, of tea—which is more than one can call the wishy-washy concoction served up in some 'tea-houses'.2006, Gipsy Petulengro, Romany Hints for Outdoor Living and Tips for Ramblers, page 7:

Synonyms of wishy-washy

All synonyms of wishy-washy

Forms of wishy-washy

comparativewishy-washier
comparativemore wishy-washy
superlativewishy-washiest
superlativemost wishy-washy

Origin of wishy-washy

Reduplication of washy; more at Wikipedia under ablaut reduplication. The wish portion of the term is explained much more by the ablaut reduplication than by any coincidental semantic appropriateness (such as that wishy-washy people wish that they could have it both ways), although the latter effect may play some nonzero cognitive role in word-finding. Compare also swish, swash, splish, and splash regarding any possible sound symbolism.

Words formed from wishy-washy

Questions about wishy-washy

What does wishy-washy mean?
Wishy-washy means wavering; lacking in commitment, certainty, support, and (often) clarity; namby-pamby.
What is wishy-washy in Urdu?
Wishy-washy in Urdu is بےمزہ, بزدل, ڈھیلا. See Wishy-washy meaning in Urdu.
How do you use wishy-washy in a sentence?
A drink of first class, aged whisky would be ridiculed in most parts of Maine as a wishy-washy beverage fit only for mollycoddles.
What part of speech is wishy-washy?
Wishy-washy is an adjective.
How do you pronounce wishy-washy?
Wishy-washy is pronounced /ˈwɪʃ.iˌwɒʃ.i/ (UK).

Words near wishy-washy in the dictionary

  1. Wishverse
  2. wishy-washier
  3. wishy-washiest
  4. wishy-washily
  5. wishy-washiness
  6. wishy-washy
  7. Wisigoth
  8. Wisigothic
  9. Wisigoths
  10. wising
  11. wising off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wishy-washy (page history and authors); wishy-washy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wishy-washy (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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: en-us-wishy-washy.ogg, en-au-wishy-washy.ogg.

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