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What is "wishy-washy"

Crossword clues for wishy-washy

wishy-washy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wishy-washy
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Brown has been criticized for being wishy-washy on political reform.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He loves to bully and to unleash his hounds on what he sees as the snooty, wishy-washy liberal establishment.
▪ I've no time for all that wishy-washy muddled thinking!
▪ The group is too wishy-washy an entity.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wishy-washy

Wishy-washy \Wish"y-wash`y\, a. [See Wash.] Thin and pale; weak; without strength or substance; -- originally said of liquids. Fig., weak-minded; spiritless.

A weak wishy-washy man who had hardly any mind of his own.
--A. Trollope.

Wishy-washy

Wishy-washy \Wish"y-wash`y\, n. A weak or thin drink or liquor; wish-wash.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wishy-washy

1690s, "feeble or poor in quality," reduplication of washy "thin, watery." Meaning "vacillating" first recorded 1873.

Wiktionary
wishy-washy

a. 1 wavering; lacking in commitment, certainty, or support; namby-pamby. 2 thin or watery.

WordNet
wishy-washy

adj. weak in willpower [syn: namby-pamby, spineless]

Wikipedia
Wishy-washy

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Usage examples of "wishy-washy".

If you are a Coffin, you were sawn out of no wishy-washy elm-board, but right heart-of-oak.

Compared with Roman imperialism, with its frankly assimilationist, exploitative, and repressive policies, British imperialism seemed to Cromer to be preferable, if somewhat more wishy-washy.