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Glite Dictionary
to call someone a wuss

to call someone a wuss

1 8.8
To say someone is not brave to make them feel bad
  • phrasal verb
  • Offensive
translation icon : llamar a alguien cobarde
  • You are calling this woman a wuss?

Examples

  • Did you just call him a wuss?

    Helen (2009)

  • They called me a wuss and demoted me to lookout.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • He always calls his friends a wuss when they won't go bungee jumping.

  • During the argument, she called him a wuss for backing down from the bet.

  • After he quit the team, his friend jokingly called him a wuss for being scared.

Synonyms

to call someone a jerk
vsto call someone a wuss
  • Offensive
5 5.7

Say someone is rude or mean to hurt their feelings

attacks someone as cowardly or weak rather than mean
to call someone a moke
vsto call someone a wuss
  • Offensive
9.9

To insult someone by saying they are a fool

attacks someone as cowardly or weak not as unintelligent

Antonyms

to compliment
95 1.6

To say something nice about someone or their work

How Insulting

to call someone a wuss
  • Offensive
1 8.8
scaredy-cat
  • Offensive
2 8.4
timid
1 3.5

Surface Forms

call someone a wuss infinitive
called someone a wuss past
called someone a wuss past participle
calling someone a wuss present participle
calls someone a wuss third person singular

Morphology

call + someone + a + wuss

The meaning is directly compositional: 'call' (to name/label) combined with 'someone' and 'wuss' (a person lacking courage) yields 'label someone as cowardly/weak.' The syntactic pattern 'call someone a X' is productive and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to infer the meaning.

Etymology

Call someone a wuss may come from American slang. The word wuss paints a picture of a small, soft creature that hides instead of facing danger, so calling someone a wuss means 'to say they are cowardly or weak'.