groaner

plural groaners

1. One who groans or complains.

   I don’t need to hear from groaners like you.

2. informalA work of extremely low quality, so bad as to inspire groaning.

   That movie was a real groaner.

   1 more example

   Some groaners are converted into running gags, as when Joel and his brother (Max Greenfield) get in a duel of parting, one-last-thing-before-you-go affirmations.

   2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2017

3. informalA particularly egregious joke, especially a pun.

   From the cleverest repartee to the worst groaner, people use and respond to puns, but sometimes find them hard to define.

   1993, Peggy O'Brien, Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 127

   2 more examples

   In the '40s, I remember ludicrous puns thought to be funny and repeated by teenagers, sometimes to a chorus of laughter. Here is a groaner example: "Mother, get off the rafters. That is no way to get on the beam." Naturally, to understand the joke, it was necessary to know the idiom of the day. "Get on the beam" meant "get with it" or understand the situation.

   2005, Donald W. McCaffrey, The Road to Comedy: The Films of Bob Hope, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 2

   "Ever heard a Terry sermon?" Delaine wanted to know. "He usually starts with a joke, almost always a groaner. I love his puns! Besides, he's not afraid to tackle any issue, and he makes fun of just about everything in sight."

   2010, Deborah Kinnard, Aloha, My Love, Desert Breeze Publishing In, →ISBN

   Antonyms: knee slapper

4. slangnauticalA whistling buoy.