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• feel-bad
  feel-bad

  adjective

  intended to make one feel unhappy, depressed, or dissatisfied, often to arouse one’s conscience or understanding.
• feel bad
  feel bad

  Also, feel bad about. Experience regret, sadness, embarrassment, or a similar unpleasant emotion. For example, I feel bad about not attending the funeral, or The teacher's scolding made Bobby feel bad. [First half of 1800s]

feel-bad

American  

[feel-bad] / ˈfilˈbæd /

adjective

Informal.

1. intended to make one feel unhappy, depressed, or dissatisfied, often to arouse one’s conscience or understanding.

   a feel-bad documentary about Nagasaki;

   feel-bad financial reports.

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feel bad Idioms  

1. Also, feel bad about. Experience regret, sadness, embarrassment, or a similar unpleasant emotion. For example, I feel bad about not attending the funeral, or The teacher's scolding made Bobby feel bad. [First half of 1800s]

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Etymology

Origin of feel-bad

First recorded in 1980–85; feel ( def. ) + bad ¹ ( def. ) on the model of feel-good ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

feel-bad feel bad

I'm sure that has contributed to the general atmosphere of doom and gloom that seems to define this feel-bad era.

From Salon ● Apr. 12, 2024

Devoid of explanatory text and almost wordless, this feel-bad documentary takes a soberly immersive approach, with the cinematographer Magda Kowalczyk often using a hand-held camera to approximate a bovine point of view.

From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2022

At the Oscars, family dramas tend to be feel-bad affairs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 22, 2021

It’ll be a feel-bad delight for some horror diehards, but most viewers will be left more bored than haunted.

From Slate ● Feb. 7, 2020

They are the feel-bad hits of the summer.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 19, 2019

In a video recorded while he was in custody, the suspect issued a message to Tunchanok's family, saying: "I feel bad for what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control."

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026

When chatbots constantly tell people how great they are, they start to expect kudos in human interactions, too—and feel bad when they don’t get them, Turkle says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

The point of the test is not to make us feel bad about our financial knowledge, but to help improve our financial outcomes.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026

I have that thought all the time where everyone’s just being nice and following me because they feel bad for me,” he tells The Times.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

I feel bad that I don’t know what other animals live in the Amazon forest.

From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes