Desperate

//ˈdɛsp(ə)ɹət// adj, adv, noun

adj, adv, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person in desperate circumstances or who is at the point of desperation, such as a down-and-outer, addict, etc.
  2. 2
    a person who is frightened and in need of help wordnet
Adjective
  1. 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. 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. 3
    Beyond hope, leaving little reason for hope; causing despair; extremely perilous.

    "a desperate disease; desperate fortune"

  4. 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. 5
    Extremely bad; outrageous, shocking; intolerable.

    "a desperate offendress against nature"

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  1. 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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    showing extreme courage; especially of actions courageously undertaken in desperation as a last resort wordnet
  2. 2
    fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless wordnet
  3. 3
    showing extreme urgency or intensity especially because of great need or desire wordnet
  4. 4
    arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope wordnet
  5. 5
    desperately determined wordnet
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  1. 6
    (of persons) dangerously reckless or violent as from urgency or despair wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Desperately. US, dialectal

Synonyms

All synonyms
dangerousdespairingdireaccident proneaccident-proneaching for

Example

More examples

"Desperate men often do desperate things."

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).

Related phrases

desperate times call for desperate measuresdesperate times require desperate measures

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.