Despondent

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.

    "Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen."

Adjective
  1. 1
    without or almost without hope wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dejecteddespairingdisconsolatedishearteneddowncasthopeless

Example

More examples

"They seemed really despondent to find that their project didn't boost profits like they thought it would."

Etymology

From Latin dēspondēns, from the verb despondere (“to give up, to abandon”).

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