buzzkill
Americannoun
-
buzzkills
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of buzzkill
First recorded in 1990–95; buzz ( def. ) (in the sense “feeling of excitement”) + kill 1 ( def. ) (in the sense “to spoil”)
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.
See Examples For:
She compared her own freewheeling youth to that of her Gen Z children, whose “third spaces” are largely online and who are coming of age under mass social-media surveillance—the ultimate buzzkill.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Kujawa says he would have "preferred the Bank Holiday after the Brazil match" as it's a "bit of a buzzkill" knowing you have to go to work the next morning.
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026
It’s no fun to be a buzzkill with the stock market soaring Wednesday following the announcement of a cease-fire with Iran.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
Empty seats aren’t just a game day buzzkill given their correlation to lost revenue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2025
I scowled—sometimes those guys were a total buzzkill.
From "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling
Surely, this is the ultimate consent and the final proof that people like me are just being buzzkills about a fundamentally innocent story.
From The Verge ● Jul. 9, 2018
Certainly not the synthetic reggae of Redondo Beach, which is one of the all-time track-two buzzkills.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 14, 2016
Many of my friends, ashamed, had kept their stories to themselves out of fear of being stigmatized, labeled buzzkills or because their masculinity put them in conflict with being victimized.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 27, 2015
That's the same Allen Shapiro from whom Snyder bought Dick Clark Productions in 2007 using money from Six Flags shareholders in a complicated transaction that ... oh, now's not the time for buzzkills!
From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2013
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
