naysayer
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of naysayer
Explanation
A naysayer is a person who always says "No." Naysayers are negative and cynical — they aren't much fun to be around. If you respond to every invitation with, "No thanks — I wouldn't have fun anyway," and answer questions about how your day was with a list of complaints, you're a naysayer. It's your negative, pessimistic attitude that makes you a naysayer. In the 1600s a nay-say was a "refusal," from the now less common use of nay to mean "no."
Vocabulary lists containing naysayer
Scrooge, Grinch, and Churl: Wonderful Words for Unpleasant People
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Curmudgeon, Cantankerous and Churlish: Grouchy Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The entire pathos of Alabama football in the last two decades was predicated on Letting Any Naysayer Know.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 2, 2024
Free for death, and free in death; a holy Naysayer, when there is no longer time for Yea: thus understandeth he about death and life.
From Thus Spake Zarathustra A book for all and none by Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
