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View synonyms for Monday morning quarterback

Monday morning quarterback

noun

, Informal.
  1. a person who criticizes the actions or decisions of others after the fact, using hindsight to assess situations and specify alternative solutions.


Monday morning quarterback

noun

  1. informal.
    a person who criticizes or suggests alternative courses of action from a position of hindsight after the event in question
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Other Words From

  • Monday morning quarterbacking noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of Monday morning quarterback1

First recorded in 1940–45
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Idioms and Phrases

A person who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight, as in Ethel was a Monday-morning quarterback about all the personnel changes in her department—she always claimed to have known what was going to happen . This expression, first recorded in 1932, alludes to fans who verbally “replay” Sunday's football game the next day, the quarterback being the team member who calls the plays.
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Example Sentences

Do you ever play Monday morning quarterback with records that don’t work?

Atkins said she wasn’t sure, saying: “It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback now. ... We know more today than we did then.”

“Imagine a 14-year-old kid trying to process in real time what’s going on, and we’re here playing Monday morning quarterback,” Gordon said.

Bill Plaschke has gone from being a Monday morning quarterback to a Thursday morning quarterback.

"Don't be a Monday morning quarterback, Ma," I said, remembering being nine years old and tilting my head back to drink from the two-liter while playing Mario, happy as hell that asthma had kept me out of school.

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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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