Wanhope
//ˈwɒnhəʊp// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair. UK, archaic, dialectal, uncountable, usually
"Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis,[…]"
- 2 Vain hope; overconfidence; delusion. uncountable, usually
Example
More examples"Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis,[…]"
Etymology
From Middle English wanhope, equivalent to wan- + hope. Cognate with Scots wanhop, wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), West Frisian wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), Dutch wanhoop (“despair”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.