loser

Etymology

From Middle English loser, losere, equivalent to lose + -er. In the sense of contemptible or worthless individual, perhaps an alteration of losel, which see.

noun

1. A person who loses; one who fails to win or thrive.
   In a two-horse race there is always one winner and one loser.
   He was always a good loser.
2. Something of poor quality.
3. A person who is frequently unsuccessful in life.
   That guy is a born loser!
   I'm a constant loser in love.
4. (derogatory) A contemptible or unfashionable person.
   Mike didn't work but insisted that Jewell have a job. He would stay home and do whatever — smoke pot, screw around. He was a total loser, and she picked up the slack. That's around the time that Mom met her soon-to-be-next husband. He immediately moved in. He was a loser, too, with the same work ethic Mike had. 2012, Frank Shamrock, Charles Fleming, “Fatherhood”, in Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter, Chicago Review Press, page 203
5. One who or that which loses something, such as extra weight, car keys, etc.
   Another way to speed search (in general) is to order or bias the hypothesis space based on some heuristic. Suppose you are a habitual car key loser and that you keep track of where your keys turn up after each search. 1999, Larry Medsker, Lakhmi C. Jain, Recurrent Neural Networks: Design and Applications, page 192
   But a West German reporting a lost passport in East Berlin during the years of the Wall was treated to a criminal investigation, with the passport loser as the potential criminal. 2004, Marianna S. Katona, Tales from the Berlin Wall: Recollections of Frequent Crossings
   2005, Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, The Biggest Loser: The Weight Loss Program to Transform Your Body, Health and Life, →ISBN:
   You're counting on this insurance company to pay you a check many years in the future. But for some companies, disability coverage has been a money loser. 2009, Jane Bryant Quinn, Making the Most of Your Money Now
   You have to think of yourself as an already amazing person who's hiding behind extra weight—a superhero in a disguise. If you follow the program, […] change the message from “I'm a big loser” to “I'm a big weight loser.” 2010, Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost, One Byte at a Time, page 109
6. A losing proposition, one that is likely to lose or already has lost (such as a losing bet or, analogously, a predictably fruitless task or errand).
   A new Guard came to town and decided to flex his muscles with George. We could have told him that he was on a loser but bright young men, then as now, know it all. 1988, Alice Taylor, To School Through the Fields: An Irish Country Childhood, Brandon Ltd, page 58
   Hardway bets are losers if they are rolled in any other combination—called "soft" or "easy" numbers. For instance, a Hardway bet on a 4 is a loser if the dice show as 3 and 1. Betting on a Hard 8 is a loser if the dice are rolled as a 5 and 3, or a 6 and 2. Naturally, if the 7 is rolled before the Hardway number shows, the bet is also a loser. 2001, Peter Svoboda, Beating the Casinos at Their Own Game, Square One Publishers, page 57
   In terms of betting on outcomes, Mars is a clear loser. December 17, 2021, Eric Ralph, “SpaceX to replicate Starbase, build multiple Starship launch pads in Florida”, in Teslarati, retrieved 2022-08-07
7. (slang) A person convicted of a crime, especially more than once.
   He's a three-time loser doing twenty years.