pamby

• namby

pamby (comparative more pamby, superlative most pamby)

1. Clipping of namby-pamby.
   • 1820 September 11, Lord Byron, “Letter CCCLXXXIV. To Mr. [John] Murray.”, in Thomas Moore, editor, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life, […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], published 1830, →OCLC, page 343:

     English, sterling genuine English, is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I hear none but from my valet, and his is Nottinghamshire; and I see none but in your new publications, and theirs is no language at all, but jargon. Even your **** is terribly stilted and affected, with ‘very, very’ so soft and pamby.

   • 1823 January 25, Lord Byron, “To Leigh Hunt”, in Rowland E[dmund] Prothero, editor, The Works of Lord Byron. […], new edition, volume VI (Letters and Journals), London: John Murray, […]; New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1901, →OCLC, pages 164–165:

     You think higher of readers than I do, but I will bet you a flask of Falernum that the most stilted parts of the political Age of Bronze, and the most pamby portions of the Toobonai Islanders, will be the most agreeable to the enlightened public, though I shall sprinkle some uncommon-place here and there nevertheless.

   • 1859 May 7, “Punch’s Election Intelligence”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume XXXVI, number 930, London: […] Bradbury and Evans, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 187, column 1:

     NAMBY, AND THE PAMBY BURGHS. Lord Badgerbait had signified to the electors of this group of burghs that they were to elect his nephew, Captain Diddlemore. But it seems that the gallant Captain had the misfortune after dinner yesterday to offend Lady Badgerbait by rather too demonstrative admiration of a favourite lady’s maid, he has been sent to town in disgrace, and the steward came round this morning to say that his lordship’s other nephew, Mr. Alfred Fluke, of Limmer’s, is to be chosen. Noblesse oblige.

   • 1917 May, W. H. Park, “Miscellany: Alcohol in China”, in Charles Chassaignac, Isadore Dyer, editors, New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, volume LXIX, number 11, New Orleans, La.: Louisiana Printing Co., […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 771:

     Some of the distilled liquors are very strong. A Chefoo man living in Soochow tells me that the best is made in Tsinanfu, Shantung Province, and it is so pure that when a match is applied to it, it will burn down to the last drop. “This” said he, “is the kind of liquor we northern people like to drink. None of the pamby watered stock like the most of the samshu found around Soochow for us.”

   • 1922 November 13, Hedda Hoyt, “Some Regular He-men Wear Corsets and Keep Pace with Edict of Fashion”, in The Daily Republican, volume 19, number 208, Rushville, Ind.: Republican Company, →OCLC, page 6, column 4:

     Corsetierrs^[sic] in New York say that men are going to wear corsets. By men they do not mean the pamby fops who drape their figures over hotel lounges, but the real he-men, who fought by slimy mudholes during the war, came home to pay their income taxes and to resume the order of the “hard-working business man.”

   • 1945 December 15, Allene Talmey, “Vogue spotlight”, in Edna Woolman Chase, editor, Vogue, volume 106, number 11, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 62, column 1:

     Clinton Sundberg plays the pamby publisher superbly, his weakness a furious force.

   • 1967 January 26, Sten Overlach, “Le Dauphin”, in Sandy Gage, editor, McGill Daily, volume 56, number 67, Montreal, Que.: Students’ Society of McGill University, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7, column 4:

     Piddle and wimple I say to Kunian and his ilk. Away with him, tush and fiddle faddle to such a pamby nimble-grimble! The race will go to the strong, the clean in mind and in body; not to the bent, the pimpled, the grubby apostles of the seedy status quo. The future has no place for the booby-joobies, among whom I include the frightening, frightened, addled Kunian.

   • 2012, Peter Sotos, Jamie Gillis, “Eve”, in Pure Filth, Port Townsend, Wash.: Feral House, →ISBN, page 289:

     They seem to especially like it when I am cruel to women. I have done lots of comic roles in my thirty year career in “adult films,” but my reputation is that deep down I really am the misogynistic monster that I have sometimes portrayed—maybe so. “Find a willing piece of shit and show them all how to properly work over a worthless fuckthing” was a recent request from a fan who complained about what he considered to be the pamby pabulum on the market.

   • 2014, Tracy Manaster, “Angels and Orifices”, in You Could Be Home by Now, Blue Ash, Oh.: Tyrus Books, →ISBN, page 157:

     He took a chair at the kitchen table. Lily resisted the pamby girl impulse to fold her arms across her chest. Talk about a cascade of causality. First you look weak, then you act weak, then you are weak. “What do you want?”

pamby (plural pambies)

1. Clipping of namby-pamby.
   • 1890 March 29, Vi Van Duzen, “The Strike of the Q. Q.’s”, in Lucy Stone, H[enry] B[rowne] Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, editors, The Woman’s Journal, volume XXI, number 13, Boston, Mass., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 103, column 1:

     “He’d scorn it. You heard what he said to-night,” answered Ben. “Never mind that. He’s got tony notions, but he isn’t a pamby, for all his talk. […]”

   • 1918 March 10, Louise James Bargelt, “Art: Variety and Talent in Triple Exhibit at the Arts Club”, in The Chicago Sunday Tribune, final edition, volume LXXVII, number 10, Chicago, Ill.: Tribune Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, part 8, page 2, column 1:

     There have been too many times that British grace and British refinement have dwindled into the namby and the pamby and there are walls in the Tate and the National gallery profuse with British sentimentality. But in [John] Lavery there is a combination of sweetness with light and with vigor; a combination irresistible wherever it is found.

   • 1960, Herbert Gold, “The tunnel of love”, in Therefore Be Bold: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: The Dial Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 246:

     All right then, step up ladies, step up gentlemen, give him a little shove if he’s a namby or a pamby, girlies. Our own lavatory scientists added the Vitamines Added. Your money freely returned if you don’t win a valuable prize.

   • 2006 October 13, Leonard Pitts Jr., “In My Opinion: Giving teachers guns a simple but stupid idea”, in The Miami Herald, final edition, 104th year, number 29, Miami, Fla., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1B, column 1:

     As others debate solutions ranging from heightened security to increased vigilance against bullying, Lasee has cut through the namby and the pamby. He wants to pass legislation that would allow properly-trained teachers and administrators to carry concealed handguns on school property.

   • 2007, Stephen T. Savage, chapter X, in Splattery: A Novel, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 61:

     Beauté’s last ex. Was under the hex. Of The Big Grift. This namby, was a pamby. A real soup sandwich. Obsessed. With The Big Grift. Which caused a rift in their salaciousness. This near-sighted jerk.

   • 2016, Sarah M. Eden, chapter 1, in The Sheriffs of Savage Wells (A Proper Romance), Salt Lake City, Ut.: Shadow Mountain, →ISBN, page 5:

     A good firm grip. He might have been young for a doctor, but at least he wasn’t a pamby. “You’re the doctor, I’m told.”

• “pamby, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.