December 1, 1998

namby-pamby

I don't know where exactly I've heard the word "namby-pamby" but I'm curious about what it means and where it comes from. I think of it as synonymous with "wishy-washy."

The expression namby-pamby has two main senses: 'lacking decisiveness; irresolute' (as in "namby-pamby decisions"), and 'weakly sentimental; insipid; insubstantial'.

Namby-pamby is a mocking reference to the English poet Ambrose Phillips, formed from the first syllable of the name Ambrose. Rhyming compounds of this sort are often used in dismissive ways. Phillips (1674-1749) was best known for his Pastorals, which were praised by Addison and Steele, but his verse does not hold up well:

O Venus, Beauty of the Skies,

To whom a thousand Temples rise,

Gayly false in gentle Smiles,

Full of Love-perplexing Wiles;

O Goddess! From my Heart remove

The wasting Cares and Pains of Love.

Despite the approval of Addison et al., many people really detested this sentimental tripe, and Phillips was harshly attacked at the time. Namby-pamby first appears in 1726 as the title of a farce by the poet Henry Carey that ridiculed Phillips' verse. Alexander Pope also used the phrase in his satirical poem The Dunciad.

In these examples, namby-pamby was used as a nickname for Phillips himself; the expression was used as an adjective in its own right by the 1740s.

The compound wishy-washy is a gradational compound--one where the vowel changes--based on washy 'weak; insipid'. Its main sense, 'lacking in decisiveness', is largely synonymous to the relevant sense of namby-pamby. This compound dates from the late seventeenth century.