Water Parties

The other day I came across the Spanish word aguafiestas. I guessed it had something to do with water, (agua) and parties (fiestas), so could mean something like ‘water parties’.

Alegría bajo el agua 2/6

In fact it means party pooper, wet blanket, spoilsport, killjoy or buzzkill, or in other words, a person who takes the fun out of a situation or activity. The fiestas part does refer to parties, but the agua part comes from the verb aguar (to water, water down, spoil, mar), so aguafiestas is someone who spoils parties by figuratively pouring water on them.

Related words and expressions include:

  • aguar la fiesta = to put a damper on things, spoil the fun, rain on sb’s parade
  • aguado = watery, flaccid, weak, boring, stale
  • aguadito = a kind of soup
  • desaguar = to drain

The opposite of una aguafiestas is el alma de la fiesta (the life and soul of the party).

If you’re neither una aguafiestas nor el alma de la fiesta, maybe you comes pavo (“eat turkey”) or eres la fea del baile (“are the ugly one at the dance”), or in other words, you’re a bit of a wallflower*.

Wallflowers

*A person who does not dance at a party, due to shyness or unpopularity; by extension, anyone who is left on the sidelines while an activity takes place. Any person who is socially awkward, shy, or reserved.

I can be a bit of a wallflower at times, and even wrote a song about it called Two Left Feet:

Are there interesting equivalents of aguafiestas / party pooper, wallflower, etc in other languages?

Sources: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aguafiestas
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aguar#Spanish
https://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/aguar
https://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/el+alma+de+la+fiesta
https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-spanish/wallflower
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wallflower

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One thought on “Water Parties

  1. Best to say

    Maybe you “comes pavo” or “eres la fea del baile”

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