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Originally and chiefly British English, the colloquial noun whingebag designates a person who habitually complains or whines.
—Cf. also the Australian-English phrase whingeing Pommy.
The noun whingebag occurs, for example, in the following from February, by the U.S. author Lionel Shriver (born 1957), from What the months of the year mean to me, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Friday 17th December 2010:
February is for curmudgeons, whinge-bags and misanthropes. You can’t begrudge us one month of the year, or blame us for being even crabbier, it’s so short.
The noun whingebag is composed of:
– the noun whinge, designating a peevish complaint;
– the noun bag, used as the second element in colloquial or slang compounds to denote a person having or displaying the undesirable quality or attribute denoted by the first element—as in, for example, the compounds scuzzbag and sleazebag.
The earliest occurrence of the noun whingebag that the Oxford English Dictionary (online edition, September 2026) has recorded is as follows, from the New Musical Express (London, England) of Saturday 4th May 1985 [page 31, column 1]:
At the risk of joining the ranks of Whingebags Anon, can I squeak whatever happened to raw pop?
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun whingebag that I have found:
1-: From a letter to the Editor, by Andrew Bluhm, RA (i.e., Residents’ Associations) candidate for Weston Green, published in the Esher News & Mail (Esher, Surrey, England) of Wednesday 6th May 1987 [page 9, column 6]—cf. footnote:
Sir,—Your correspondence concerning the local elections takes on a Gilbertian note as party mini-spokespersons jostle for space to condemn the Residents’ Associations.
Have they no positive suggestions? As W. S. Gilbert nearly wrote:
When all week long a chap’s confined
In Dittons, to relieve monotony
He exercises of his mind
That is, assuming that he’s got any.
As an RA candidate standing against two little Liberals and one little Conservative for a four-year term on the council, I will be happy to accept the voters’ decision on the merits of our pro-resident work […].
My answer to the political party whinge-bags is given in the refrain to the Sentry’s song in Iolanthe:
Fal-lal, la, Fal-lal, la…
2– : From the following message, published in The Independent (London, England) of Saturday 13th February 1988 [Valentine Greetings, page 12, column 9]:
ETHEL WHINGEBAG. All my love the Bin Man.
3-: From Deadly invasion of the North, by Mick Middles, published in the Manchester Evening News (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Monday 7th March 1988 [page 22, column 1]—the author denounces “the current outbreak of northern town human interest stories”:
It’s possible that the newspapers and journalists responsible are acting in good faith by attempting to present an attack on southern complacency, but, in effect, they universally ignore the positive aspects of northern life, or most of them, and serve to enforce the vision of a divided Britain.
I’ve touched on this subject before but, even a cynical old whingebag like I didn’t realise the extent of the damage about to be caused by these patronising pillars of journalistic integrity.
4-: From a review of Ivanov, by the Russian playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), as produced at the Strand Theatre, London—review by the South-African critic Clive Hirschhorn (born 1940), published in the Sunday Express (London, England) of Sunday 16th April 1989 [page 19, column 1]:
The hero of Chekhov’s first full-length play, IVANOV (Strand), is a real old whinge-bag.
Marinated in self-pity and pickled in self-loathing, he’s the classic Chekhov failure in embryo who destroys everything he touches—himself included.
Note: Quotation 1 alludes to the Sentry’s song (officially titled When all night long a chap remains), from Iolanthe (1882), a comic opera by the British playwright and librettist William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and the British composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900). This song contains, in particular, the following lines:
When all night long a chap remains
On sentry-go, to chase monotony
He exercises of his brains,
That is, assuming that he’s got any.
Though never nurtured in the lap
Of luxury, yet I admonish you,
I am an intellectual chap,
And think of things that would astonish you.
I often think it’s comical—Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive—Fal, lal, la!
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la!
