crybaby

plural crybabies · alternative cry baby · alternative cry-baby

1. A baby who cries excessively.

   A notorious human crybaby, according to her older siblings, parents and the building superintendent, will cry for two hours every two hours, refusing to acknowledge any distinction between crying and other basic infant activities, like “being awake” or “breathing.”

   2017 September 4, Natalie Angier, “A Baby Wails, and the Adult World Comes Running”, in The New York Times

2. derogatoryslangSomeone whose feelings are very easily hurt, often by trivial matters.

   Then he used the occasion to humiliate the provost, calling her an example of the censorious crybabies whom he had come to relieve of their responsibility.

   2023 February 10, Graeme Wood, “DEI Is an Ideological Test”, in The Atlantic

3. derogatoryslangSomeone who takes offense or excessively complains or cries when things are not going well.

   […]Now there are a lot of crybabies around who are talking about what ought to have done and the bomb ought to have had a demonstration in Japan before you killed all those people. […] I don't care what the crybabies say now because they didn't have to make the decision.

   1964, Harry S. Truman, 4:20 from the start, in MP2002-359 Former President Truman Discusses Using the Atomic Bomb to Stop the War, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162

present singular third person crybabies · participle present crybabying · participle past crybabied · past crybabied · alternative cry baby · alternative cry-baby

1. intransitiveTo act like a crybaby.

   Out: Trash talk, dirty play, crybabying, showboating and players who can't be bothered to show up for games or keep their shoes on.

   1995 June 15, Scott Ostler, “SCOTT OSTLER -- Hakeem Sets Old Standard”, in San Francisco Chronicle

   1 more example

   “I have learned the hard way,” she crybabied this week, “that we have to be fearless and loud in order to be heard, and to prepare for the backlash that occasionally comes with that outspokenness.”

   2023 October 27, John Nolte, “Nolte: 'Hunger Games' Actress Rachel Zeigler Plays the Victim over 'Snow White' Backlash”, in Breitbart