underwhelmed
feeling no excitement about or admiration for something or someone
TRANSLATION
underwhelmed = unbeeindruckt, alles andere als begeistert sein ------ GOOGLE INDEX underwhelmed: approximately 479,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Rising sales of dairy products, logs and pleasure boats helped boost New Zealand's exports by 12 per cent in July, official figures show, although the figures have UNDERWHELMED economists.
www.stuff.co.nz
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Did you
know?
underwhelmed
adjective
- feeling no excitement about or admiration for something or someone
(Cambridge Dictionary)
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In English, certain opposites are easy to learn. Underfed (not getting enough food) and overfed (getting too much food) make perfect sense. But not every word with "under-" has an opposite with "over-". Just think of "understand".
However, to understand the word underwhelm, it helps to know what overwhelm means. This is when something causes you to have a strong emotional reaction (Her arrogance overwhelmed him, leaving him unable to reply). The word's root is from Old English whelm, which meant surround completely or submerge, and was used in the 1500s.
Although the verb whelm is itself rarely used on its own any more, or perhaps only in very limited contexts, its function has been taken over by the word overwhelm.
The opposite word, underwhelm, was created much later to express a rather sarcastic observation that something fails to overwhelm, or even to mildly impress us.
Underwhelm most probably came from the book Giant Corporations (1956), by TK Quinn. The author commented that the price of a certain product was lowered minimally, at a time when the price of everything else was rising rapidly. "I was underwhelmed, and investigated."
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SYNONYMS
disappoint, let down, fail to interest, disenchant
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I must admit to being rather underwhelmed by our latest sales figures."
adjective
- feeling no excitement about or admiration for something or someone
(Cambridge Dictionary)
--
In English, certain opposites are easy to learn. Underfed (not getting enough food) and overfed (getting too much food) make perfect sense. But not every word with "under-" has an opposite with "over-". Just think of "understand".
However, to understand the word underwhelm, it helps to know what overwhelm means. This is when something causes you to have a strong emotional reaction (Her arrogance overwhelmed him, leaving him unable to reply). The word's root is from Old English whelm, which meant surround completely or submerge, and was used in the 1500s.
Although the verb whelm is itself rarely used on its own any more, or perhaps only in very limited contexts, its function has been taken over by the word overwhelm.
The opposite word, underwhelm, was created much later to express a rather sarcastic observation that something fails to overwhelm, or even to mildly impress us.
Underwhelm most probably came from the book Giant Corporations (1956), by TK Quinn. The author commented that the price of a certain product was lowered minimally, at a time when the price of everything else was rising rapidly. "I was underwhelmed, and investigated."
---
SYNONYMS
disappoint, let down, fail to interest, disenchant
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I must admit to being rather underwhelmed by our latest sales figures."
