Talk:loser

you8 cant just say "its an insult", nothing is just an insult. it has to insultingly mean something or other, maybe it means your someone who would be considered unable to achieve anything, or something like that, when used as an insult. but 'insult' does not count as a meaning of a word.--lygophile01:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Meaning as a failure in life

I didn't see the derogatory meaning, often used in the U.S., to describe a person who is incapable of success, as a failure in life and pre-judged to be inept:

• "After he dropped out of school, he quit the good job his parents had arranged, and squandered his wife's money because he is such a loser."
• "If you want to succeed in life, beware making friends with losers."

The meaning is derogatory because it condemns the person(s) as pre-judged to always fail in life. See definitions at:

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn%3Fs%3Dloser . -Lexic77 12:45, 13 Nov 2009

Erm, yes, and? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• I added that meaning to "born loser" instead, but in the U.S., that meaning has been the most-common derogatory sense of "loser" as a person who would always lose in life, rather than being some vague insult used just because the word sounds negative. In the U.S., people are always misuing words (or insults), so those instances should not be considered as definitions simply because words are often misused in that manner. -Lexic77 14:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

  In a word yes. How does anyone judge if someone is "misusing" a word. I suppose if people can understand you (easily) it's not misuse. So no, we don't delete definitions on "personal whims". Mglovesfun (talk) 14:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The word "loser" in almost all senses grates on my soul, but it is undeniable that the word is used in these senses. The sense added at "born loser" often seems to be carried by "loser" alone. The existing definitions clearly convey the idea so we wouldn't need an additional definition. I would expect it to be hard to find quotes that would enable us to attest to the specialization of meaning to "one predestined to fail in life" or similar. DCDuring TALK 15:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

loser = Someone who has lost weight ???

I think the meaning:

1. Someone that has lost weight. (a recent term, originally from Kelloggs, but now has come from NBC show "The Biggest Loser")

   She is such a loser, she lost 15 kilos!

should be removed. I don't think it's fair to coin a word by the title of a TV show. It's actually the meaning "someone who loses", but it's taken literally and used refering to "weight". Although someone who succedes (in losing weight) isn't considered a loser. It's like an irony.

It can also be interpreted as a competition among losers.Dl.goe (talk) 10:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

RFD

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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RFD-sense x2:

• Someone who loses in a specified manner.

  is redundant to: A person who fails to win.

• Someone with bad luck or poor skills who consistently loses.

  is redundant to: A person who is frequently unsuccessful in life.

This was pointed out by another user years ago, but never RFd'd. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:31, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

The first doesn't strike me as redundant. There are plenty of situations that aren't winnable competitions/contests, but in which one can still suffer a serious loss or setback. "Our children will be the losers if this government's flawed education plan becomes reality," "indigenous wildlife isn't the only loser when it comes to habitat destruction," etc. -Cloudcuckoolander (formerly Astral) (talk) 04:06, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it can be expanded to “ […] who fails to win or thrive” — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 05:27, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Apparently in a specified manner refers to 'good loser', 'bad loser' and so on. Surely in this sense, it's just someone who loses. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:32, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

I've deleted the "someone with bad luck" sense as redundant to the "person who is frequently unsuccessful if life" sense. I've merged the "someone who loses" and "someone who fails to win" senses like this. - -sche (discuss) 17:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)