pushover
Americannoun
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Informal. anything done easily.
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Informal. an easily defeated person or team.
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Informal. a person who is easily persuaded, influenced, or seduced.
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Rocketry. a displacement in a horizontal direction of the trajectory of a missile or rocket.
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Aeronautics. push-down.
noun
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something that is easily achieved or accomplished
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a person, team, etc, that is easily taken advantage of or defeated
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pushover
1905–10, noun use of verb phrase push over
Explanation
A pushover is a person who's easy to fool or influence. A substitute teacher who's a pushover is easily convinced that the class usually spends an hour watching music videos. If you're a pushover, you find it hard to deny anyone what they ask for. If your mom's a pushover, it means it's a breeze to get her to say yes when you ask for something. A babysitter who's a pushover will let the kids stay up way past their bedtime. If you think about it, the word makes sense: if you can push someone over easily, then that person can't stand up against you. Around 1900, pushover meant "an easy job or task," and by 1922 it also referred to people.
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.
