professional victim
- noun
- /prəˈfɛʃənl ˈvɪktɪm/
- Offensive
:
victimista
- By constantly portraying herself as a professional victim, she seeks attention rather than resolving her issues.
What about the person who is a professional victim?
- What about the person who is a professional victim?
Examples
-
Because your indignant complaints make you all sound like professional victims.
Blog text (15) -
Poor fuckers are professional victims.
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She is often seen as a professional victim because she exaggerates every setback to gain sympathy.
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His tendency to play the professional victim in every situation makes it hard for others to take his claims seriously.
Synonyms
33
5.9
A person who pretends to suffer to get sympathy
A person who pretends to be ill to avoid work
How Victim-like
- Offensive
- Offensive
2
9.9
36
5.2
11
2.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'professional' + 'victim', so learners can partially infer it refers to someone who habitually or expertly presents themselves as a victim. However, the intended sarcastic/figurative sense (exaggerating or fabricating grievances for attention) relies on metaphorical extension of 'professional' beyond its basic occupational meaning and on pragmatic inference, so the exact meaning is not fully predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Professional victim is a phrase that mixes professional ('worker') and victim ('someone wronged'). Imagine a person who acts hurt all the time to get sympathy or help, so professional victim means 'a person who often acts like a victim to get attention or advantage'.