Word.ws English Dictionary

despairest

despairest is the second-person singular simple present indicative of despair.

Meaning of despair

Verb

despair (third-person singular simple present despairs, present participle despairing, simple past and past participle despaired)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To give up as beyond hope or expectation; to despair of.
    • I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted.1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC
  2. (transitive) To cause to despair.
    • Thinking of what I was despairing about despaired me further2019, Tim Dee, Landfill
  3. (intransitive) To be hopeless; to have no hope; to give up all hope or expectation.
    • We despaired even of life.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Corinthians 1:8

See all 6 meanings of despair

Origin of despairest

despair + -est

Questions about despairest

What is despairest the second-person singular simple present indicative of?
Despairest is the second-person singular simple present indicative of despair.

Words near despairest in the dictionary

  1. despair
  2. despaire
  3. despaired
  4. despairer
  5. despairers
  6. despairest
  7. despaireth
  8. despairful
  9. despairfully
  10. despairfulness
  11. despairing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: despairest (page history and authors); 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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