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dismal science

British  

noun

  1. a name for economics coined by Thomas Carlyle

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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Perhaps, with new technologies and methods of analysis, they can become even rarer, enabling economics to shed the image of a dismal science.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026

I’ll inject some of my dismal science here: Saying that a recession is on the horizon doesn’t sound optimistic, but in a buyer’s housing market, there are some positives to recessions.

From Slate • Feb. 6, 2023

If economics is "the dismal science," should we start calling polling "the abysmal science"?

From Salon • Jan. 8, 2023

You'd think in the 21st century, practitioners of the dismal science would have found some way to control inflation other than putting people out of work.

From Reuters • Nov. 17, 2022

Carlyle called it "the dismal science," and most books on the subject are dismal enough to justify the term.

From The Common Sense of Socialism A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg by Spargo, John

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