dot-commiserate

verb

To seek solace with other people left jobless by the dot-com bubble collapse.

Meanings

verbdot-commiserate (third-person singular simple present dot-commiserates, present participle dot-commiserating, simple past and past participle dot-commiserated)

present singular third person dot-commiserates · participle present dot-commiserating · participle past dot-commiserated · past dot-commiserated

  1. historicalslangTo seek solace with other people left jobless by the dot-com bubble collapse.

    An Internet marketing firm called Thehiredguns.com sponsors pink-slip parties where casualties can get together and "dot-commiserate."

    2000 August 20, Abby Ellin, “If at First You Don't Succeed, Celebrate!”, in The New York Times
    2 more examples

    Failure became a buzz word when the dotcom bubble burst in the late Nineties. Many paper millionaires instantly became part of the "90 per cent club" (people who had lost 90 per cent of their wealth, or more). The casualties got together and "dot-commiserated".

    2003 July 29, Helen Kirwan-Taylor, “Rock bottom? We're on a high”, in The Telegraph

    (The original, ancestral pink slip parties date to 1910, but became known to modern-day workers in the late 1990s, when downsized tech sector employees got together to dot-commiserate.)

    2009 April 1, Gendy Alimurung, “Pink Slip Parties in L.A.: Laid Off but Not Out”, in LA Weekly

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

dot-commiserate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dot-commiserate

MLA

“dot-commiserate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dot-commiserate. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dot-commiserate,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dot-commiserate.

Source: dot-commiserate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.