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wet blanket
1noun
- a blanket dampened with water so as to extinguish a fire.
- a person or thing that dampens enthusiasm or enjoyment:
Nobody asked him to join the group because he's such a wet blanket.
wet-blanket
2[ wet-blang-kit ]
verb (used with object)
- to extinguish (a fire) with a wet blanket.
- to dampen the enthusiasm or enjoyment of (a person, group, etc.).
wet blanket
noun
- informal.a person whose low spirits or lack of enthusiasm have a depressing effect on others
wet blanket
- Someone who dampens enthusiasm: “We were all having a good time until Harold walked in and started acting like a wet blanket.”
Word History and Origins
Origin of wet blanket1
Origin of wet blanket2
Idioms and Phrases
A person who discourages enjoyment or enthusiasm, as in Don't be such a wet blanket—the carnival will be fun! This expression alludes to smothering a fire with a wet blanket. [Early 1800s]Example Sentences
I lay out my worries here not as a wet blanket, but because I am a worrier.
Have you noticed there are some people who would love to put a big wet blanket on all of this?
If anything, the idea of Kristen Stewart, expert wet blanket, only got even damper.
She was an iceberg,—a beautiful kill-joy,—a wet blanket of charming texture.
But that was perhaps unnecessary; and we shall not throw a “wet blanket” upon the matter by further alluding to it.
A wet blanket of so terrible a size was in itself pernicious to the Cabinet, and heartrending to the poor Duke.
So I gave him one end of a wet blanket which I was carrying, and I grabbed hold of the other end.
How much potential goodness and greatness would become actual but for the wet blanket of sullen silence!
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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.
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