SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
defeatist
adjective
Expecting failure and therefore discouraging effort.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Expecting defeat
No close substitute is listed for this sense. The expressions below help explain the idea.
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topDefeatist discourages effort through expected failure. Pessimistic or negative expectations can coexist with continued effort. Fatalistic accepts inevitability; despairing lacks hope; resigned accepts an unwelcome result.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See defeatist in use
A defeatist attitude made every obstacle seem insurmountable.
A defeatist member of a student storytelling team declared that losing was certain and urged everyone to cancel the remaining rehearsals.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license