sad sack slang (chiefly U.S.).
(sæd sæk)
[The name of a cartoon character invented by G. Baker, U.S. cartoonist.]
A stupid and blundering member of the armed services; an inept, ineffectual, and unfortunate person; a social or occupational misfit. Also transf. and attrib.
| [1942 Yank 17 June 7 (caption) The Sad Sack.] 1943 Sun (Baltimore) 28 Dec. 14/6 A forlorn look, a G.I. haircut, an oversized fatigue uniform and all the paraphernalia that goes with them branded me as a typical ‘sad sack’. 1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 68/2 Model mother saddled with a sad sack and a dope. 1953 Word Study May 5/1 Everyone knows of the sensitive misfit, the ‘sad sack’ who suffers a good deal of spiritual depression, the result of an unfortunate maladjustment to service routine. 1967 New Yorker 15 Apr. 148/3 Mr. Goldman's movie sweeps up a dustpanful of young Village sad sacks and patronizes them. 1971 J. Gray Red Lights on Prairies iii. 58 A sad-sack of a shack town on Pile of Bones Creek. 1973 Observer (Colour Suppl.) 15 July 21/4 On the whole the pre-1914 spinster had been something of a sad sack. 1974 T. P. Whitney tr. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipel. I. i. v. 222 These sad-sack spies, with the milk hardly dry on their lips. 1978 Listener 31 Aug. 286/4 The sad sack of a hero, who speaks in the first person, is called Lewis Redfern. |