non-starter
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Something that is unlikely to succeed or be accepted
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Điều gì đó không可能 thành công hoặc được chấp nhận
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: an event or project that does not start
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The new policy is a non-starter with the employees
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “non-starter” mean?
Something that is unlikely to succeed or be accepted Literally: an event or project that does not start
Is “non-starter” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.