- The neologism “fail,” used as a noun (“That was such a fail.”) is paired with “son” to create a noun that can be applied to someone as defined above.
failson
noun; compounding
A son who is considered a social/professional failure; lives at home with his parents; used supposedly objectively but inherently derogatory. "At the Genius office, as people set up chairs on the floor below us, Menaker described the generic Chapo fan as a “failson”—which Biederman, who is twenty-six, defined as the guy that “goes downstairs at Thanksgiving, briefly mumbles, ‘Hi,’ everyone asks him how community college is going, he mumbles something about a 2.0 average, goes back upstairs with a loaf of bread and some peanut butter, and gets back to gaming and masturbating.”
Etymology : compound of “fail” (itself a neologism, a clipping of the noun “failure”) and “son” (“descendant, male offspring”)
Source : The New Yorker online
Last modified: 3 December 2016