Meaning
A person who discourages other people's enjoyment or dampens enthusiasm; by extension, anything that has a depressing or subduing effect on an occasion or a mood. Informal and slightly unkind, though usually said in passing rather than as a serious insult. Informal and mildly contemptuous; a label for a killjoy or spoiler of collective good spirits. Regional use: General English.
Origin
From the literal fire-fighting practice: a soaked blanket smothers flames by cooling them and shutting out air, and the OED records the compound noun in this literal sense from 1618. The Phrase Finder traces the figurative use to December 1798, in newspapers covering the French invasion of Switzerland: the Kentish Gazette wrote of throwing 'a wet blanket on the fire, which was otherwise about to spread through Europe', and the Hampshire Chronicle, in the modern sense of dampening ardour, of throwing 'a wet blanket upon their rising spirit'. Early use was often verbal ('throw a wet blanket over'); the direct personal label - calling someone a wet blanket rather than saying they acted like one - settled in during the early 19th century, as OED-registered derivatives such as 'wet-blanketiveness' (1834) and the verb 'to wet-blanket' (1844) show the metaphor was thoroughly established by then.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a bit of a wet blanket
- throw a wet blanket on something
- throw a wet blanket over something
- to wet-blanket (someone)
Usage Examples
- Don't be such a wet blanket; one song at karaoke won't kill you.
- The budget news threw a wet blanket over the launch party.
- He worried his fatigue would make him a wet blanket, so he slipped out of the celebration early.