Dictionary

doomster en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree English doom Proto-West Germanic *-astrijā Old English -estre Middle English -estere English -ster English doomster From doom + -ster.

Meanings

1. Someone who predicts doom.
   • Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently, / And though thy birth-hour beckons thee, / Sleep the long sleep: / The Doomsters heap / Travails and teens around us here, / And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear. 1901, Thomas Hardy, “To an Unborn Pauper Child”, in Poems of the Past and the Present, Edinburgh & London: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., page 126:
   • Chase and Pleasant may have been innocents, but they were smarter than the doomsters who predicted that Chase would lose her fortune, for their New York company, the Ballet Theatre (later the American Ballet Theatre), got off to a phenomenally successful start. 1988 January 29, Dorothy Samachson, “Dance Notes: remembering Antony Tudor, conscience of the ABT”, in Chicago Reader:
   • As the self-confessed scourge of “doomsters and gloomsters”, the prime minister visibly loathed having to tell the nation in March their local would be shut down by the government – and enjoyed telling them “bustle” can now return to the high street. 2020 June 26, Heather Stewart, “Boris Johnson hopes bullish approach can bring back the 'bustle'”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • The Tory leadership candidate Rishi Sunak has rejected accusations from his successor as chancellor of being a “doomster” on the economy, as he pushed his plan to cut income tax by 20% by the end of the decade. 2022 August 1, Geneva Abdul, “Rishi Sunak rejects claim he has ‘doomster’ attitude to economy”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • "We have to demonstrate to the doomsters at the Treasury that we can manage this properly," Steer warns. 2023 November 1, Paul Clifton, “One account for the UK railway”, in RAIL, number 995, page 43:
2. (Scotland, archaic) A judge; a deemster.
   • You are of opinion that the justice of an execution consists, not in the extent of the sufferer's crime, or in his having merited punishment, or in the wholesome and salutary effect which that example is likely to produce upon other evil-doers, but hold that it rests solely in the robe of the judge, the height of the bench, and the voice of the doomster? 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XXI, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume III (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 168:

Forms

Synonyms

doomer · pessimist · doomsayer