Word.ws English Dictionary

counsel of despair

counsel of despair noun: a proposal or piece of advice that indicates one has given up on trying to fix a given obstacle or problem.

Noun

counsel of despair (plural counsels of despair)

  1. A proposal or piece of advice that indicates one has given up on trying to fix a given obstacle or problem.
    • Without holding any particular brief for a diet of Shelley, I would think it only a counsel of despair to say that the majority, or any sizable minority, of average intelligence can't be reached with the values of education, with some of the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the race, but must be...1956, Mortimer Brewster Smith, The Public Schools in Crisis: Some Critical Essays, page 8
    • But it is a counsel of despair. You say somebody else might do something to make themselves stronger, therefore we should not bother to look to our own security.1986, George Shultz, Proposed Arms Sales to the Kingdom of Jordan
  2. An action or decision that reflects the attitude behind such advice.
    • Again, Agnosticism is “right” if it be a "counsel of honesty” ; wrong if it be a “counsel of despair.”1897, Metropolitan Pulpit and Homiletic Monthly - Volume 33, page 491
    • If a man adopts an exceptional measure in a state of absolute extremity, that does not make it a fundamental article of his faith. It is a doctrine of despair, and he merely adopted it on that occasion as a counsel of despair, and when a Liberal and a democrat adopts an exceptional measure as a...1917, Richard Cornthwaite Lambert, The Parliamentary History of Conscription in Great Britain, page 311

Examples of counsel of despair in a sentence

  • And so we might think that the dialogue offers little more politically than a counsel of despair.2019, Matthew Landauer, Dangerous Counsel: Accountability and Advice in Ancient Greece, page 176:
  • To take up the way of force was no doubt a counsel of despair.2013, Theodor Mommsen, Dero A. Saunders, John H. Collins, The History of Rome, page 122:

Forms of counsel of despair

pluralcounsels of despair

Questions about counsel of despair

What does counsel of despair mean?
Counsel of despair means a proposal or piece of advice that indicates one has given up on trying to fix a given obstacle or problem.
How do you use counsel of despair in a sentence?
And so we might think that the dialogue offers little more politically than a counsel of despair.
What part of speech is counsel of despair?
Counsel of despair is a noun.
What is the plural of counsel of despair?
The plural of counsel of despair is counsels of despair.

Words near counsel of despair in the dictionary

  1. counites
  2. couniting
  3. counits
  4. Couns.
  5. counsel
  6. counsel of despair
  7. counsel of perfection
  8. counselable
  9. counseled
  10. counselee
  11. counselees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counsel of despair (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.

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