desperater

Adjective

desperate (comparative more desperate or (rare, proscribed) desperater, superlative most desperate or (proscribed) desperatest)

1. In dire need (of something); having a dire need or desire.
   • I hadn't eaten in two days and was desperate for food.
2. Being filled with, or in a state of, despair; hopeless.
   • I was so desperate at one point, I even went to see a loan shark.
3. Beyond hope, leaving little reason for hope; causing despair; extremely perilous.
   • a desperate disease; desperate fortune
4. Involving or employing extreme measures, without regard to danger or safety; reckless due to hopelessness.
   • In England his flute was not in request; there were no convents; and he was forced to have recourse to a series of desperate expedients.1879, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “GOLDSMITH, Oliver”, in The Encyclopædia Britannica […] , Ninth edition, Volume X, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, page 761, column 2
5. Extremely bad; outrageous, shocking; intolerable.
   • a desperate offendress against naturec. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
6. Intense; extremely intense.
   • She enraged some country ladies with three times her money, by a sort of desperate perfection which they found in her.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

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