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feel-bad

[ feel-bad ]

adjective

, Informal.
  1. intended to make one feel unhappy, depressed, or dissatisfied, often to arouse one’s conscience or understanding:

    a feel-bad documentary about Nagasaki;

    feel-bad financial reports.



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Word History and Origins

Origin of feel-bad1

First recorded in 1980–85; feel ( def ) + bad 1( def ) on the model of feel-good ( def )

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, feel bad about . Experience regret, sadness, embarrassment, or a similar unpleasant emotion. For example, I feel bad about not attending the funeral , or The teacher's scolding made Bobby feel bad . [First half of 1800s]

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Example Sentences

If not for meaningfulness, what other reason is there to watch a movie that makes you feel bad?

I tell myself not to feel bad because my life expectancy is eighty-six, which means I have nineteen more years of life.

If you don't understand that reference, don't feel bad: it's just proving our point.

Other species experience bad feelings, but humans are unique in their capacity to feel bad about feeling bad.

Plus when you read articles like this, you can't help but feel bad for the kid.

It makes me feel bad to think that my boys fought against it (he meant the boys who attended the Sunday school).

Makes me feel bad to see any young creetur suffer; most of all to see a bird.

Why, then, should we feel bad if the world looks upon us as ravagers of religion and insurgents against constituted authority?

And then I gives Miss Sterling the laugh proper, just to carry it off like a joke, so she wouldn't feel bad about the mistake.

When something happens which it makes me feel bad, Max, I got to swear, y'understand.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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