sad sack
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.86 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "One law enforcement official played down Mr. Defreitas’s ability to carry out an attack, calling him “a sad sack” and “not a Grade A terrorist.”"
- "“Super Sad” takes as its Romeo and Juliet, its Tristan and Iseult, a middle-aged sad sack named Lenny Abramov and a much younger beauty named Eunice Park."
- "Weary of his drab life with its nowhere job, failed marriage, boring girlfriend, and estranged teenage son, a middle-aged sad sack fakes his death, changes his identity, and hits the road."
- "We meet him as he's on his way out, taking the news with equal parts tantrum and sad-sack acceptance."
- "So Samantha, the A.I. assistant with whom the sad-sack divorcé Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) fell in love in “Her,” felt like a futuristic revelation."
- "In this case, it’s a sad-sack, married literature professor named Mark (played by Michael Angarano), who locks in on Margo and—correctly—identifies her writing potential."
Etymology
US 1920s. Popularized by Sad Sack, a cartoon character and eponymous comic strip published originally June 1942 in Yank, the Army Weekly, a US Army publication for soldiers, and later syndicated in the US 1940s and 1950s. Presumably from vulgar “sad sack of shit” as cartoonist Sgt. George Baker said he took it from a “longer phrase, of a derogatory nature”. The term originally referred to a well-meaning but inept soldier.
Usage
- American usage