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Loser   /lˈuzər/   Listen
Loser

noun
1.
A contestant who loses the contest.  Synonym: also-ran.
2.
A person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently.  Synonyms: failure, nonstarter, unsuccessful person.
3.
A gambler who loses a bet.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Loser" Quotes from Famous Books



... practice of distributing handbills in the streets is dying a natural death, more or less hastened by local by-laws, and when the loose bills in magazines and cheap novels have ceased to exist no one will be the loser. Advertisements in the weekly press are on the whole more successful in England than in America. A few American weeklies cope successfully with the increasing competition of the huge Sunday editions of American daily papers. But even the most successful among them—a paper for boys—has hardly ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Fazarah, even if he carries a hundred weight of stone on his back." They discussed the matter for a long time, the one affirming the other denying the statements, until Hadifah closed the altercation by saying, "I hold to the wager, on condition that the winner takes from the loser as many male and female camels as he chooses." "You are going to play me a nice trick," said Carwash, "and for my part I tell you plainly that I won't bet more than twenty camels; the man whose horse loses shall pay this forfeit." The matter was arranged accordingly. They sat at table ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... estates in Burgundy, for his passion for gaming, his horses, and his cook, the baron wielded a mighty influence. Still, on this occasion he did not carry the day, for it was decided that the "sharper" should be allowed to depart unmolested. "Make him at least return the money," growled a loser; "compel him to disgorge." ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... price of dogs had been boomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for so fine an animal. The Canadian Government would be no loser, nor would its despatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs, and when he looked at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand—"One in ten t'ousand," ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... way has not been acquired. But if I were the defendant's counsel, I should suggest that the foundation of the acquisition of rights by lapse of time is to be looked for in the position of the person who gains them, not in that of the loser. Sir Henry Maine has made it fashionable to connect the archaic notion of property with prescription. But the connection is further back than the first recorded history. It is in the nature of man's mind. A thing ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... affords me contentment; But if ye grant me not this, be it known, I will do myself justice— Seizing what Aias obtain'd, or despoiling the tent of Odysseus; Yea, peradventure, thine own—whatsoever the rage of the loser. These, of a surety, are things to be duly consider'd hereafter; Meantime, down to the deep let a black-hull'd galley be hauser'd, Oarsmen selected and rang'd, and the hecatomb stow'd for the temple— Mine be the care to accomplish the freight with the rosy Chryseis. Last, be some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... for it with the rest of the crowd, trying to keep my eye on Sniffles. But she had the sure-loser's touch of slipping away from any authority. She vanished into the milling mob. My last glimpse had been of a skinny arm reaching up to pluck some more free hors d'oeuvres from a tray ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett

... cried Mollie, exasperated, yet beginning to laugh, for after all Mollie was a good loser. "Some way or other I'll get even with you, Betty ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... resources, relieved the embarrassment of the moment. Provision was made for the future not so much by the reform in the Asiatic revenues, under which the tax-payers were the principal gainers, and the state chest was perhaps at most no loser, as by the resumption of the Campanian domains, to which Aenaria was now added,(33) and above all by the abolition of the largesses of grain, which since the time of Gaius Gracchus had eaten like a canker ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... transmission of the elements of production, especially of capital, from one hand to another.(540) When, therefore, the debtor employs the capital that he has borrowed, more productively than the creditor would have done, the whole country is a gainer; as it is a loser, on the contrary, when a person engaged in industry advances to the idler, the frugal man to the spendthrift, the solid man to the wild speculator. In declining nations, where every new development hastens decay, the latter alternative may be the prevailing one; and, especially ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... So profound, so true, So meet for the occasion, and so—short. The king sat studying rhetoric as he spoke, While the lord Abbot heaved half-envious sighs And hung suspended on his accents. CLAUD. But will it pay, Horatio? HOR. Let Shylock see to that, but yet I trust He's no great loser. CLAUD. Which side went in first? HOR. We did, And scored a paltry thirty runs in all. The lissom Lockyer gambolled round the stumps With many a crafty curvet: you had thought An Indian rubber monkey ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... be given as a legacy, the legatee undoubtedly profits by what is added to it, and is a loser by what is taken from it, during the testator's lifetime. Whatever the slave acquires in the interval between the testator's death and the acceptance of the inheritance belongs, according to Julian, to the legatee, if that legatee be the slave himself ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... engagements permit of your coming to see me, I may perhaps be able to take you into my confidence. If you should come, bring with you the manuscript of this boy's story that I may judge for myself if the Ibex will be the loser. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... drawing a pair of dice from his pocket. "Somehow, and sometime, I aim to shoot Panhandle a little game. Then you guys can pass the hat for the loser. Panhandle left them dice on the flat rock, by the water-hole. My ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... will sell it, very good—and thank you. You shall not be a loser! But for goodness' sake, don't twist about like that, sir! I have heard of you; they tell me you are a very learned person. We must have a talk one of these days. You will bring ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... hundred and fifty in a million as in the "distinguished class," If, as Doctor Ward and others think, many more might be able to qualify for that position if favorably situated, then society, which is the loser by every undeveloped person, must learn to know the possibilities of children as indicated by scientific study and lessen the present waste of potential talent. Dr. Carl Kelsey says "Heredity determines what a man may become, but environment determines what ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... heart; I'm a good loser. And I'm a good fighter, too; perhaps I shan't lose." And snapping off a sprig of geranium, she pressed it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... one profession, wherein one man's success is not based upon another's failure; all rivalry, all competition, triumph and rapture to the winner, disgrace and anguish to the loser! And then these fellows, fattened on widows' tears and orphans' misery, preach you pure homilies about the cruelty of taking life. But you are quite right about the combination of pleasures—the excitement, too, of quick motion ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... gamester, and was involved in pecuniary embarrassments. The Indians in the neighborhood of his dwelling-place were much attached to him, and frequently sent him presents of poultry, cheese, butter, &c. One day, after he had been a loser at the gaming-table, he complained bitterly of his misfortunes to an Indian, who was his particular friend. After some deliberation, the Indian observed, that possibly he could render him some assistance; and, accordingly, on the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... If a man be despised in a matter in which he evidently excels greatly, he does not consider himself the loser thereby, and therefore is not grieved: and in this respect he is less angered. But in another respect, in so far as he is more undeservedly despised, he has more reason for being angry: unless perhaps he thinks that he is envied or insulted ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Such is the history of my Stage adventures, and which I have at last done with. I cannot help saying that I am very sick of the stage; and though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall upon the whole be a loser, even in a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I certainly lost while ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... said Harrington, "and if they had kept it to themselves in many instances, probably the world would have been no loser. That they had it from within, is true,—if your theory is true. But to others, to the bulk of mankind, they have imparted this light; it has been to mankind an 'external revelation'; it is from without, not from within, that this light has been received, and that the boasted 'progress' of ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... There was a tear in her eye as she rose to go, and it was a beautiful blue eye, better fitted to smiles than tears; this was enough, and, even poor as I was, I would not have missed the opportunity of writing this letter, though I had been a loser by the task. Happy Charles! I wrote from her dictation, and it is wonderful how well the heart prompts to eloquence, even among the uneducated and obscure. In all honesty, though I had but jested with my pretty employer, this genuine ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... replied the mate, energetically. "Greasers isn't human bein's. Besides, it's all fair play, life for life, and the gentleman with the single fluke tail take the loser. Haint they set a price on our heads? Eight thousand dollars on your'n, and five thousand on mine? I never was worth five thousand down at Portland; but if they've marked me up too high, it's their own look out. They'll never be called upon to pay it. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three pounds—the loser's end of the purse—and beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put themselves. No—and there was no use in disguising ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... ever bargained for the repayment in gold, after the war, of the millions she had lent the Turks in paper, if she knew that Turkey could never repay her. True, the loans had only cost her the paper the notes were printed on, so that in no case could she prove a loser, but how could she be a gainer? The answer to that question shouts at us from every acre of Turkish soil. The immense undeveloped riches of Turkey supply the answer. Some indeed are already being developed, and the labour and most of the materials ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... once more waive ceremony, and accept the best that he can give you. If I may look for any pleasure in the coming time, it will be to remember that the peasant is secure, and my most generous friend no loser.' ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he had finished, "they say a patient waiter is no loser; but I guess it depends a good deal on how you spend your ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... if she has silk skirts then she must have other things too, and she must know why she hides all these things in a hut which really does not look larger than a large henhouse. I wanted only to warn you, Marianne; you surely will be the loser with ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri

... off her needle while, with his head still bent forward, Nehemiah Yerby sourly eyed her, feeling himself a loser with Brother Vickers, in that he did not have the reverend man's incumbency ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... was a picture to look at. He was a loser in that deal to the tune of some $20,000, and this sudden and unexpected discovery of where it had gone was a ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford

... "at a ruinous sacrifice," but he seemed to have a depot of infinite extent and capacity, from which he annually drew new supplies. He invariably left a neighborhood the loser by his visit, and the close of each season found him inconsolable for his "losses." But the next year he was sure to come back, risen, like the Phoenix, from his own ashes, and ready to be ruined again—in the same way. He could never resist the pleading ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is corrupted and the loser both corrupted and deprived. Gambling undermines all habits of industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience, thoroughness, ability, and tempts us to rely on chance. It is an unmitigated social evil, but goes unforbidden ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... and shook hands. That led off, and the rest followed, with Trampas at the end. The tide was too strong for him. He was not a graceful loser; but he got through this, and the Virginian eased him down by treating him precisely like the others—apparently. Possibly the supreme—the most American—moment of all was when word came that the bridge was open, and the Pullman trains, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance." Discourage going to law. "Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough." "There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. Let no young man choosing the law for ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... purpose, there is competition and cooperation and fellowship, but the organization is a loose one and does not bear heavily. So, too, with the pleasure of a game of ball for the amateur who plays now and then. There is organization, control and competition; but unless one is a poor loser, there is a relaxed tension in that the purpose is not vital, and one can shout, jump up and down and express himself in uninhibited excitement. Whether this excitement has a value in discharging other excitement and feelings that are inhibited in the daily ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... hot blood mounted to his forehead and slowly sank again. And in those few moments Noel Wyndham stepped into manhood and faced his soul anew. If she loved him, he would marry her and give her all he had; withholding nothing. She should not be a loser because she had loved him better ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... criterion of progress is the one most commonly adopted in considering the question as to whether Japan is the gainer or the loser by her rapid abandonment of old ways and ideas and by her equally rapid adoption of Western ones in their place. Yet this appeal to happiness seems to me a misleading because vague, if not altogether ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... almost every man here; and I find, if I go early to dinner, I shall have to hand in all the elderly ladies, and to take my place at their sides; whereas, if I go a little late, I can steal in alongside of their daughters.' Now, on the present occasion, he will be altogether a loser, the lady of the house ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... broke on a Tuesday: Maxley dug on impassive; and when curious people came about him to ask whether he was a loser, he used to inquire very gravely, and dwelling on every syllable, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... "Leslie is a better loser than you think, my dear," said Sara, looking out over the tops of the cedars. "He will not ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... the quotation immensely. With the same opponent he once tried a competition in verse-making. Both showed considerable skill, but the umpire decided that Louis had won, so he bore off in triumph the prize of a bottle of olives, and was only sorry that he could not compel the loser to share his feast, which he well knew would be as abhorrent to her as it was delightful ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... purple-faced Irishman by the arm. "You are to say nothing to anyone, Uncle Denny. How could I prove that he meant to do it? And do you want me to be a loser that bellyaches?" ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... but added with a sigh, "If I have given up content in search of joy, I shall perhaps be a loser by the venture." Soon after this, he wished them a good ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... frontier settlement there are men who have come there to escape restraint. Cutter was one of the "fast set" of Black Hawk business men. He was an inveterate gambler, though a poor loser. When we saw a light burning in his office late at night, we knew that a game of poker was going on. Cutter boasted that he never drank anything stronger than sherry, and he said he got his start in life by saving the money that other young men spent for cigars. He was ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... is allowed hy Hindu law and the winner has power over the person and property of the loser. No "debts of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... The loser of the money obeyed, though he seemed to be as much in the dark as to the object of the movement as the skipper. Dory was worried at the words of the officer; for, if he would not go on board of the ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... calmed down, but resolved to hurry back to London. They stayed a night at Taylor's, who remarked that he had fought a good many battles for a physician, one of their common friends. "But you should consider, sir," said Johnson, "that by every one of your victories he is a loser; for every man of whom you get the better will be very angry, and resolve not to employ him, whereas if people get the better of you in argument about him, they will think 'We'll send ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... Cactus Joe. "In the course of time a good loser comes to be regarded merely as a ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... they play at dice, when sober, as a serious business: and that with such a desperate venture of gain or loss, that, when everything else is gone, they set their liberties and persons on the last throw. The loser goes into voluntary servitude; and, though the youngest and strongest, patiently suffers himself to be bound and sold. [138] Such is their obstinacy in a bad practice—they themselves call it honor. The slaves thus acquired are exchanged away in commerce, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... devour on the spot, but chancing to look out of the window, I saw John standing directly under it and an irresistible desire came upon me to drop the melon on his head, which I immediately did. I was the loser, for it spoiled the melon, and John never forgave me and we dropped all intercourse and parted, but now met again under ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... patient; as to the law, no prudent man is willing to risk his life or his fortune to a young lawyer, who has not only no experience, but is generally too conceited to know the risks he incurs for his client, who alone is the loser; therefore, as the mistakes of a clergyman in doctrine or advice to his parishioners cannot be clearly determined in this world, I advise you by all means to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... dispose Austria in favor of France,[6] and to render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia. Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and, in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that the king had never harbored the design of seeking a compensation at the expense ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... conduct had been so far from soothing, that Alice had abundant material for retorts, and she was not likely to be a loser in the war of words. What she did say I did not hear, for by that time I had locked myself up in ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... find what you now believe a sacrifice something quite tolerable and quite consoling; you don't know me, but I know myself. Believe me, even should I come to love you—as I never shall—you would be the loser by it. I am worth much more as a friend than as a lover. And more than one man in the world has found ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... inadvertency of youth, and the disease and infirmities of old age: that our portion of time is not only short as to its duration, but also uncertain in the possession: that the loss of it is irreparable to the loser, and profitable to nobody else: that it shall be severely accounted for at the great judgment, and lamented in a sad eternity."—"Of the Care and Improvement of Time," Miscel., 6th edit., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various

... father by those two innocent little children, as their mother pushed them from the room, I shall not soon forget. I remembered, as I left the house, that there had been a large failure in Market street, and that Mr. Elder was said to be the loser by some ten thousand dollars—less than a twentieth part of what he is worth. I am happier than he is ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... rejoiceth more to see a line from thee than myself. I know thou hast long been under trial. Thou shalt be no loser by it. All things must work for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... willing to take a stranger who has no claims upon you, if you are certain you will be a loser by so doing?" ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... any guns he could still save and surrender any men who were under the fire of the victors' guns and likely to be slaughtered, in order to minimise the score against him. And an interest was given to a skilful retreat, in which the loser not only saved points for himself but inflicted ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells

... having something to reproach the king with; it is a pride natural to my race to pretend to a superiority over royal races. Doing what you propose, I should become the obliged of the king; I should certainly be the gainer on that ground, but I should be a loser ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... taels, or about fifty dollars, per chest. Experience had shown that leaving the most largely imported article into China contraband had been both futile and inconvenient, while the Chinese government was a direct loser by not enjoying a legitimate source of revenue. How general the view had become that the evils of the use of opium were exaggerated, and, even admitting them, that there was no better way of diminishing their effect than by legalizing the import of opium, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... to prevent your doing so with the Englishman. What! exclaimed the countryman, you wish me to take fifteen bundles of Brussels thread, when I can have twenty from Manchester? Certainly; do you not see that France would be a loser, if you were to receive twenty bundles instead of fifteen? I can scarcely understand this, said the laborer. Nor can I explain it, said the custom-house officer, but there is no doubt of the fact; for deputies, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... gold darics which will corrupt his statesmen, and some spices, carpets, and similar luxuries which good Hellenes can well do without. The Athenian lad will never need to crucify the flesh upon Latin, French, and German, or an equivalent for his own Greek. Therein perhaps he may be heavily the loser, save that his own mother tongue is so intricate and full of subtle possibilities that to learn to make the full use thereof is truly ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... Why don't I corral an' hold 'em when they're in my clutch? It would have been breakin' the trooce as Injuns an' I onderstands sech things; moreover, they let me go free without conditions when I was loser by ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... that they just can't live on anything that doesn't grow here. And consequently, land is the key factor in their economy, not money; nothing but land. To get land, it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. That ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse

... on solid ground here. "In fact I may say the best and most consistent loser I have knowledge of. It has not been decided yet what—ah, field of industry he will enter. He is just out ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... Oxymandyas Deep-versed in many a dark Egyptian wile,— The Hebrew boy hath eyed Cold to the master's bride; And that Medusan stare hath frozen the smile Of all her love and guile, For whom the Caesar sighed, And the world-loser died,— The ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... played among soldiers, in which the loser wears a forked stick on his nose till he ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... Petrarch and Laura ever gone to the point of executive session, he would straightway have ceased to write about it, and literature would have been the loser. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... this but to unburden himself of his secret, Mr. Harringford stated that he feared the deceased had been a heavy loser at Ascot. Mr. Harringford, having gone to that place with some friends, met Mr. Elmsdale on the race-course. Expressing astonishment at meeting him there, Mr. Elmsdale stated he had run down to look after a client of his who he feared was going wrong. He said he did ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... line about this very matter of the mysterious flying men. No sooner had he set up his portion of the editor's note than he begged leave of absence for half-an-hour from the overseer, whipped off his apron, and rushed off to demand his winnings before the loser had time to spend them in the Blue Lion on the way home from work. They repaired, nevertheless, to the Blue Lion to settle their account; they told the news to the barman, who passed it to the landlord; a publisher's ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... is after my job?" mused Carl. "That's what happens after you've had a winning team for a couple years. A few reverses and the proud alumni commence hollering 'get the axe'! Everybody loves a winner and they don't stop to figure there's got to be a loser to every winner. Now that Grinnell's piled up a great record this year, we're supposed to bump you off. If we do, despite the fact we've had no season to shout about ourselves, the alumni will consider our year ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... to try to make of him another Harry Smith. We need one best Sam Brown and one best Harry Smith but not two Harry Smiths. If we try to make our Sam Brown into a second Harry Smith, society is certain to be the loser to the value of Sam Brown. We want to see Sam Brown realize all his possibilities to the utmost, for only so will he win integrity. Better a complete Sam Brown, though only half the size of Harry Smith, than an incomplete Sam Brown of any size. If the native tendencies of Sam Brown ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... blood-soaked handkerchiefs (or "sweat-rags") buried in a hole on the field of battle, and the Giraffe was busy the rest of the evening helping to patch up the principals. Later on he took up a small collection for the loser, who happened to be Barcoo-Rot in spite of the advantage ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... complain of him. The Baron, certainly, is fond of play; plays high, indeed. He has not had equal fortune at the New House as at the Redoute; at least I imagine so, for he has given me no cause to believe, in any way, that he is a loser." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... party is much benefited by the commodity which he receives of the other, while the other, the seller, is not a loser by going without the article, no extra price must be put on. The reason is, because the benefit that accrues to one party is not from the seller, but from the condition of the buyer. Now no one ought to sell to another that which is not his, though he may sell the loss ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... sovereign he couldn't drive his geese half a mile. "Look here, Gordon," he said to me: "there's a lot of distress in the town just now—trade bad, and so on, and so on. I'll lay you a level ten pounds I drive these geese to Hillport myself, the loser to give the money to charity." "Done," I said. "Don't say anything about it," he says. "I won't," I says—but I am doing. (Applause.) I feel it my duty to say something about it. (More applause.) Well, I lost, as ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... 1830. Throughout it the Lord richly supplied all my temporal wants, though at the commencement of it I had no certain human prospect for one single shilling: so that, even as it regards temporal things, I had not been in the smallest degree a loser in acting according to the dictates of my conscience; and as it regards spiritual things, the Lord had dealt bountifully with me, and had condescended to use me as an ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... of his, and I am astonished that a man belonging to so good a house as he does should try that game with me. I shall speak to the elder partner about it to-morrow, and if he does not make the young man apologize in the most abject manner he will be the loser by it, I can ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... you, Ailie," said Morton, desirous to silence her remonstrances, "that this is a business of great importance, in which I may be a great gainer, and cannot possibly be a loser." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... long before when Janice and the president of the town selectmen had been at variance. Mr. Cross Moore had desired the Polktown hotel to retain its liquor license while the girl had championed the dry cause. The latter had won; but Cross Moore was a good loser. Mrs. Moore might be angry with Janice Day; but her husband had always held what he termed "a sneaking fondness for that Day girl" and no matter how much they might conflict in politics or opinion, ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... fury, the double stakes; but Fleur, forewarned by the friendly Daries that his antagonist's greed of gain equalled his love of chess, refused to take the winnings, and was accordingly invited by the grateful loser to come and play a return match on the morrow. Fleur accepted the challenge, and next day staking two hundred byzants against as many on the watchman's side, he again contrived, by help of the ring, to win the game and stakes, and as before handed over the latter to his antagonist, ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton

... were playing some old game, beneath that same old tree; I have forgot the name just now—you've played the same with me, On that same spot; 'twas played with knives, by throwing so and so; The loser had a task to do, there, forty ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... Greece and Rome that we are indebted for that valuable taste, which will be insensibly lost, by the affected negligence, which now prevails, of having recourse to originals. If reason has been a considerable gainer, it must be confessed that taste has been somewhat a loser. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... to home returned He sang the pleasure of the chase; But had not yet the lesson learned That he was loser in the race. Yet, when sat in the winter's cold And game had fled to warmer clime, He had no stock to sell for gold, Nor food: and past ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... Betty B—-. This Betty was unlike the rest of my Yankee borrowers; she was handsome in her person, and remarkably civil, and she asked for the loan of everything in such a frank, pleasant manner, that for some time I hardly knew how to refuse her. After I had been a loser to a considerable extent, and declined lending her any more, she refrained from coming to the house herself, but sent in her name the most beautiful boy in the world; a perfect cherub, with regular features, blue, smiling eyes, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... which was thrown away. Had the combatants been equally matched, the result of this campaign might have been a matter for congratulation; but when the Confederacy was compelled, in order to cope with its formidable antagonist, to deal mortal blows in every encounter, or come out of each one the loser, the prisoners, artillery, and small arms taken, the recovery of Cumberland Gap and a portion of Tennessee, and the supplies secured for the army, scarcely repaid for the loss of prestige to Confederate generalship, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... in which he refused to receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause, and cries of "You shall be no loser by it!" Nothing very wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is, nor have I any intention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the landlord was a Carlo Borromeo; he merely ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it was exasperating. But his face had showed no anger. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... his energies upon finance and politics, there might have been a line of reigning Medicean princes in Florence half a century earlier than actually was the case, but Europe would have been distinctly the loser by the absence of the greatest personal force making for culture which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... her parent, declared her intention of refunding them from the labours of her own hands. 'I may perhaps make trial of your patience by some delay, Sir Philip,' she said; 'but so far as my receipts will allow, no one shall be the loser from having placed confidence in my unhappy father. Had I accepted your addresses, you would have had reason to despise me; but I am not so base as to form a union in which my heart has ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... my conscience, besides being a dangerous thing. Deceived, the poor man had to be—for his own good, but my story must be made to hold water and ring true, else, with his doubting and probing nature, I well knew he'd ferret out the facts and very like leave me a loser. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... the receiver. All present saw the shining fragment, and it seemed as though molten metal had fallen into the fire. Erik, maintaining that it had been jerked away by the carelessness of him who took it, asked what punishment was due to the loser of ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... of a fa'a'n, if he's got one, or some other bit of leather suitably prepared. There's some that do say, all that stands in print is true, in which case I'll own an unl'arned man must be somewhat of a loser; nevertheless, it can't be truer than that which God has printed with his own hand in the sky, and the woods, and the rivers, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... warning of the impending calamity, and for the time was much overcome by the announcement. He foresaw what it implied, however, and at once returned to Boston, to find himself a heavy loser by the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... daughter was practically engaged to Clarendon Bromfield and that he did not like the man. The range-rider did not like him either, but he tried loyally to kill his distrust of the clubman. If Beatrice loved him there must be good in the fellow. Clay meant to be a good loser anyhow. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... out of the contest a loser, but as a compensation had the knowledge that my physicians were false prophets; that, barring accidents, I could count on thirty, forty, even fifty years with their summers and autumns and winters. And that was the life I desired— ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... organize into one of their own. Later, under cover of his own guns, his charge recovered the ruins, forcing the party of the first part who had started the "show" back to his own former first line trench, which left the situation as it was before with both sides a loser of lives without gaining any ground and with the prospect of drudgery in building anew their traverses and burrows and filling ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... Punishments. Not only natural Self-love, but Reason directs us to promote our own Interest above all Things. It can never be for the Interest of a Believer to do me a Mischief, because he is sure upon the Balance of Accompts to find himself a Loser by it. On the contrary, if he considers his own Welfare in his Behaviour towards me, it will lead him to do me all the Good he can, and at the same Time restrain him from doing me any Injury. An Unbeliever does not act like a reasonable Creature, if he favours me contrary to his present ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... destructive agencies that human imagination and ingenuity could devise, schooled the citizens of each nation in the suicidal formula: "might makes right; every nation for itself and woe betide the laggard and the loser." ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... Sighs—the police, whom, in spite of traditions of terror, I would very willingly have changed for some of those their predecessors whom you have honoured by a note in the 'Italy.' The present police appear to act on exactly contrary principles; yours found the purse and banished the loser; these don't find the jewels, and won't let me go away. I am afraid no punishment is appointed in Venetian law for people ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... Giraffe. Tell you what I'll do, though, in the generosity of my heart—make a wager with you about that fire business; and it's a treat of ice-cream for the crowd, for the loser." ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... certainly was tough," Duane said. "But you're a good loser. And the wheel turns! Now, Laramie, here's what. I need your advice. I've got a little money. But before I lose it I want to invest some. Buy some stock, or buy an interest in some rancher's herd. What I want you to steer me on is a good square rancher. Or maybe ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... opponent would probably always checkmate him; whereas, in most cases, the more difficult the game the more thoroughly the players are aroused to do their best, and a difficult game is invariably a good one,—the winner and the loser both feel it to be so,—even though the loser may regret his loss. But—the reader will say—a game of chess is a game only,—neither one's bread and butter nor one's life depend upon winning or losing it. If, however, we need to be cool ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call

... since I was to be in every sense the loser. I am sorry to say I didn't treat your friend with civility, Luttrell. After your departure, however, he went himself to Netherglen, and there, it seems, he put the finishing stroke to any claim that he might have ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... of the age, habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was disgracing himself again—that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds—the cunning parvenu listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds, secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... Frederick the Great, the pet victim of Louis XIV., the foe against whom Napoleon made his first youthful efforts and the vanquished of his prime, the defeated foe of Napoleon III., the vanquished tyrant of Italy united, the loser in Prussia's Thirty Days' War of 1867, and now the gradual loser against Russia's wild, numberless hordes. She has already lost all of Galicia and stands with her back to the Carpathians and has been held off on equal terms by Serbia these four months past. A ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... laughing matter, sure enough," quoth Peregil; "and in sooth I cannot perceive why I should be facetious on the occasion, for after all I am the greater loser of the two. Look for a moment at this vile beast! May the lightning of heaven and the curses of all the saints fall on him and his former master too;" and so saying he again belaboured the sides of the unfortunate ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio



Words linked to "Loser" :   nonstarter, underdog, dud, unsuccessful person, flop, washout, failure, insolvent, achiever, also-ran, gambler, unfortunate, old maid, unfortunate person, flash in the pan, bankrupt, winner, lose, contestant



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