Wet

Origin of: Wet

Wet

To be a ‘wet’ is public school slang from the late 19th/early 20th century for a weak and ineffectual person. Eric Partridge maintains it is a more polite, shortened version of wet dream, which is consistent perhaps with the school connotation but it could also have connections to being a wet blanket, someone who puts a damper on things and spoils the fun, which was a common expression by the mid-1850s. See also drip.