bereft

/bəˈɹɛft/

bereft is the simple past and past participle of bereave.

Adjective

bereft (not comparable)

Pained by the loss of someone.
- I was utterly bereft in the months following my wife's death.
- [Oscar] Pistorius's punishment for killing her [Reeva Steenkamp] that night is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry.2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport)
Deprived of, stripped of, robbed of.
- And there I strove, and there I clove through the drift of icy streams; / And there I fought, and there I sought for the pay-streak of my dreams. // So twenty years, with their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such, / Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch; […]1909, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Ballad of One-eyed Mike”, in Ballads of a Cheechako, Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, →OCLC, stanzas 3–4, page 52
- This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies!1969 December 7, Monty Python, “Full Frontal Nudity, Dead Parrot sketch”, in Monty Python's Flying Circus, spoken by Mr Praline (John Cleese)
Lacking, devoid of.

Synonyms:

barren, destitute

bereave (third-person singular simple present bereaves, present participle bereaving, simple past and past participle bereaved or bereft)

(transitive) To deprive by or as if by violence; to rob; to strip.
- Madam, you have bereft me of all words,c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
(obsolete, transitive) To take away by destroying, impairing, or spoiling; take away by violence.
- All your interest in those territories / Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
(transitive) To deprive of power; prevent.
(transitive) To take away someone or something that is important or close; deprive.
- Death bereaved him of his wife.
(intransitive, rare) To destroy life; cut off.

From Middle English bireft, v. Middle English bireven. Synchronically a form of bereaved; compare leave and left.

What does bereft mean?: Bereft means pained by the loss of someone.
What is bereft the simple past and past participle of?: Bereft is the simple past and past participle of bereave.
What part of speech is bereft?: Bereft is an adjective.
How do you pronounce bereft?: Bereft is pronounced /bəˈɹɛft/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: bereft (page history and authors); bereave (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bereft.ogg, en-au-bereft.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bereft.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bereft. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.