Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Informal Thin and watery, as tea or soup; insipid.
- adj. Informal Lacking in strength of character or purpose; ineffective.
Wiktionary
- adj. Wavering; lacking in commitment, certainty, or support; namby-pamby.
- adj. Thin or watery.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Thin and pale; weak; without strength or substance; -- originally said of liquids. Fig., weak-minded; spiritless.
- n. A weak or thin drink or liquor; wish-wash.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. weak in willpower, courage or vitality
Etymologies
- Reduplication of washy, thin, watery, from wash. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Taking four months to make a wishy-washy decision will haunt him.”
Obama informs top diplomatic, military officials of Afghan decision
“Me-thinks there is a lot of wishy-washy “statistics” at play.”
“I don't appreciate it when people duck important issues by being wishy-washy, so let me say upfront that I lean toward the belief that hell is a real place for those that reject Jesus.”
The Huffington Post: Carl Medearis: Why Are We So Angry About Hell?
“For the most part, when it's good, it's really good, but it isn't consistently good, hence I'm still kind of wishy-washy about it.”
“The only reason the GOP ran into problems is that we elected waaay too many moderates like Rudy Guiliani (no one likes wishy-washy politicians.)”
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off
“Them fighting words McCain ... the AARP better quit being so wishy-washy with their politics and state yes/no to support the public option now that the big$ lobbies are airing fear-mongering ads to target 14 Senators”
“Nice going Al, it's about time someone shut the little wishy-washy twerp up”
“People are getting very fed up with these wishy-washy politicians.”
“Nothing like the wishy-washy leftist who says, "Personally, I would never have an abortion, BUT ...”
“She is not flashy, she is not wishy-washy, she is not corrupt.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wishy-washy’.
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Dominant/Submissive
single-minded, self-seeking, vain, territorial, stubborn, self-possessed, unwary, self-important, rigid, relentless, resolute, purposeful and 189 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Reduples
Go for it, brothers and sisters! I personally have been suffering long for lack of an open reduplicatives list
happy clappy, bribble-brabble, diddle-daddle, hugger-mugger, kikiriki, Bora-Bora, mahi-mahi, jingle-jangle, knick-knack paddy..., chit-chat, bon-bon, clapperclaw and 292 more...
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Only the Vowels are Different
hip-hop, fiddle-faddle, mishmash, flip-flop, chit-chat, riffraff, knick-knack, ping-pong, zigzag, sing-song, criss-cross, seesaw and 14 more...
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Words to research
balkanize, obstreperous, dysphoria, euphoria, sinecure, abstruse, chin music, colophon, signature, notwithstanding, nullity, nullity of a dete... and 26 more...
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Choi inspired
Fun words my friend loves and others I introduced to him.
Namby-pamby, Niminy piminy, Nitpick, Nit-wit, Piggly-wiggly, Ping-pong, Pitter-patter, Raggle-taggle, Riff-raff, zoot suit, zig-zag, wishy-washy and 73 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Double Trouble
Reduplicatives and more.
splish-splash, hip-hop, kit-kat, dingaling, hugger-mugger, even-steven, tit for tat, higgledy-piggledy, dilly-dally, boogie-woogie, knick-knack, mai tai and 131 more...
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Words next
patrimony, cacophony, fearsome, coruscating, coruscating, coruscating, dolomite, dolorous, transdermal, chatty cathy, chatterbox, incessantly and 249 more...
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oddball
wackadoodlery.
( personal list )
related (from me):
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/onomatopoeias--1
bric-a-brac, succotash, humbucker, skedaddle, scallywag, sassafras, gadzooks, humdinger, hoity-toity, wishy-washy, namby-pamby, ding dong and 439 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibcock, bibliobibuli, biffy, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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Hocus-pocus, I see a crocus!
Reduplicatives
willy-nilly, higgledy-piggledy, harum-scarum, argy-bargy, boogie woogie, hanky panky, itsy-bitsy, helter-skelter, lovey-dovey, wishy-washy, namby-pamby, niminy-piminy and 95 more...
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Hyphenated Actual Words
These kind of stun me whenever I see them. Language is just so cool.
chuck-will's-widow, will-o-the-wisp, saw-whet, topsy-turvy, linsey-woolsey, ne'er-do-well, gung-ho, so-so, cul-de-sac, fleur-de-lys, service-berry, major-domo and 33 more...
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my never-ending list
Criteria of a word to be placed on list: no simple words like if or the, and it must be a word i love.
coo, truffle, bliss, mumbo jumbo, putter, buzz, abundance, acrimony, kismet, glisten, muffled, fascination and 15 more...
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What Joanna Wrote
Words written (and then sung) by the talented Ms. Newsom.
malleable, burnie, wishy-washy, baleen, kith, chim-choo-ree, rosemary, nautical, fumbling, catalyst, ululate, panopticon and 5 more...
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charming words sung by Joanna Newsom
lateen, catenaries, dirigibles, taciturn, exhume, vestal, bedraggled, poetaster, keening, embarcadero, slack-jawed, straggly and 82 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wishy-washy.

whichbe The condition of a filthy person when self-conscious. Oct 9, 2008
slumry I had imagined this to be an Americanism, but I was wrong. The oldest sense (1693) referred to watery. "Newfangled" sense of vacillating evidently was recorded in 1873. It was part of my parent's vocabulary. Jul 2, 2007
sonofgroucho I'm sure I came across this one in the Charlie Brown (Peanuts) cartoons. Jul 2, 2007
abraxaszugzwang just taught this to my students today. they got a good chuckle out of it. Feb 28, 2007