wishy-washy
/ˈwɪʃɪwɒʃi
/adjective
1(Of drink or liquid food) weak; watery.Before moving on, I drink a cup of tepid wishy-washy Amsterdam espresso tasting and smelling of unclean canal water, with ‘Sally’, my obnoxious Salisbury suitcase, parked at my feet.
Synonyms
watery, weak, watered down, thin;
tasteless, flavourless, insipid
2Feeble or insipid in quality or character: wishy-washy liberalism...
- It's almost like my character is so wishy-washy that nobody believes in what I do.
- This is not the wishy-washy spiritualism that insists that it does not matter what you believe so long as you believe in something.
- Although each character's storyline is wrapped up, the climax is wishy-washy.
Synonyms
feeble, ineffectual, weak, vapid, milk-and-water, effete, spineless, limp, limp-wristed, namby-pamby, half-hearted, spiritless, irresolute, indecisive
informal wet, pathetic, weak-kneed
British informal half-arsed
pale, insipid;
pallid, wan, sickly
Origin
Early 18th century: reduplication of washy.
pell-mell from Late Middle English:
People like words that combine two almost identical forms, like helter-skelter (late 16th century), mishmash (Late Middle English), namby-pamby, and wishy-washy (late 17th century)—and pell-mell. Its second element represents a form of French mesler ‘to mix’ (related to medley). The first part might be from pelle ‘shovel’, giving the sense ‘mixed together with a shovel’, but the simple love of rhyme may be the only explanation needed.