From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdefeatistde‧feat‧ist /dɪˈfiːtɪst/ noun [countable] FAILsomeone who believes that they will not succeed —defeatist adjective a defeatist attitude —defeatism noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
defeatist• That is what we seek to do, rather than adopting a defeatist attitude to the delivery of health care.• Yet it would be wrong to end this chapter on a defeatist note.• Those who belittle the value of new integrative speculation are, in a phrase of Bennett's, dogmatically defeatist.• A few hundred yards away at Conservative Central Office the mood has been more subdued, though not defeatist.• What a sceptical or defeatist system needs is motivation.• In my view, then, it was rather defeatist from a vocational standpoint to adopt a stance like Mr Graham's.• It is difficult to understand why the Democratic leadership should have been quite so defeatist in 1981. 