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Desperate
Definitions
- 1 In dire need (of something); having a dire need or desire.
"I hadn't eaten in two days and was desperate for food."
- 2 Being filled with, or in a state of, despair; hopeless.
"I was so desperate at one point, I even went to see a loan shark."
- 3 Beyond hope, leaving little reason for hope; causing despair; extremely perilous.
"a desperate disease; desperate fortune"
- 4 Involving or employing extreme measures, without regard to danger or safety; reckless due to hopelessness.
"In England his flute was not in request; there were no convents; and he was forced to have recourse to a series of desperate expedients."
- 5 Extremely bad; outrageous, shocking; intolerable.
"a desperate offendress against nature"
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- 6 Intense; extremely intense.
"She enraged some country ladies with three times her money, by a sort of desperate perfection which they found in her."
- 1 showing extreme courage; especially of actions courageously undertaken in desperation as a last resort wordnet
- 2 fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless wordnet
- 3 showing extreme urgency or intensity especially because of great need or desire wordnet
- 4 arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope wordnet
- 5 desperately determined wordnet
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- 6 (of persons) dangerously reckless or violent as from urgency or despair wordnet
- 1 Desperately. US, dialectal
- 1 A person in desperate circumstances or who is at the point of desperation, such as a down-and-outer, addict, etc.
- 2 a person who is frightened and in need of help wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English desperat(e) (“desperate”), borrowed from Latin dēspērātus, perfect passive participle of dēspērō (“to be without hope”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). The noun is derived from the adjective or from the Latin source through substantivization, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).
From Middle English desperat(e) (“desperate”), borrowed from Latin dēspērātus, perfect passive participle of dēspērō (“to be without hope”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). The noun is derived from the adjective or from the Latin source through substantivization, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).
From Middle English desperat(e) (“desperate”), borrowed from Latin dēspērātus, perfect passive participle of dēspērō (“to be without hope”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). The noun is derived from the adjective or from the Latin source through substantivization, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).
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