poor devil
2
5.4
- noun
- /pʊr ˈdɛvəl/
- Informal
:
pobre diablo
- What's this poor devil ever done to you?
- poor devil, I thought
- poor devil, said
- saw some poor devil
Examples
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Those poor devils down there.
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For these poor devils, it's too late.
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You poor devil, and what did you study?
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Who was to know that that poor devil was going to read the article in the paper?
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The poor devil looks exactly like me.
Fiction book (1999) -
No, let's save the poor devil.
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We can't just take off and leave these poor devils behind.
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Believe it or not, the poor devil's fainted.
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Why don't they tell the poor devil he won't see anyone today instead of torturing him like this?
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You poor devil, and what did you study?
Synonyms
13
6.1
A person who is very unhappy and needs help
3
3.4
A person who has bad luck or problems
Antonyms
How Pitiful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derived by combining 'poor' (deserving pity) with 'devil' used colloquially to label a person, yielding 'an unfortunate or pitiable person.' This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g. Spanish 'pobre diablo'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Poor devil likely comes from putting the strong word devil next to poor, creating a small picture of someone seen as bad but also unlucky. That's why poor devil now means 'a person you feel sorry for'.