Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being miserable; miserablism: specifically, a complainingly pessimistic view of, or attitude towards, life. See the extract.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A tendency to take a miserable or pessimistic view on life; a consistently miserable outlook, negativity.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Miserabilismus, French misérabilisme, corresponding to miserable +‎ -ism.

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Examples

  • The miserabilism is not a conclusion but a premise: What is, is.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • The miserabilism is not a conclusion but a premise: What is, is.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • It is instead simply the shallow self-sustaining logic of a depressive and defeatist miserabilism.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • It is instead simply the shallow self-sustaining logic of a depressive and defeatist miserabilism.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • Monty Python – troubadour of British despondency – once mocked such miserabilism in song.

    When all hope is collapsing, it's time for a reality check | Julian Glover 2011

  • Because by 'the rest of us' you mean 'Guardian readers and the rest of this country's socially, intellectually and morally diseased holders of diplomas in advanced miserabilism'.

    Lucy Mangan: What is it with Tories and royalty? Lucy Mangan 2010

  • Another example of wallowing in lower class miserabilism without the tact, beauty and poignancy of this years Samson and Delilah or the horror and ferocity of Rowan Woods' The Boys.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Glenn Dunks 2009

  • It was a novelty seeing Jon Hamm on the Letterman show last week, smiling, laughing, and oozing relaxation, all of the traits denied him in his role as TV's foremost manwich of miserabilism, Don Draper.

    By the Blight of the Silvery Moon: Mad Men Postmortem: James Wolcott Wolcott, James 2009

  • "What gives [Aki] Kaurismäki's films their delightful tension is the tug-of-war between this apparent miserabilism and the surges of hope that disrupt the dour surface," writes Ryan Gilbey in the New Statesman.

    GreenCine Daily: Weekend shorts. 2007

  • So I suspect if readers are looking for "happy endings" it may be less about a desire for infantile solace as a dismissal of the sort of bourgeois miserabilism which wrongly equates "serious" and "solemn".

    WHEN THE BAR HAS NO LOWER TO GO ... CHOICES* TEV 2006

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  • A philosophy of pessimism, self-indulgent pessimism; gloomy negativity.

    May 12, 2008