Word.ws English Dictionary

despondent

/dɪˈspɒndənt/

despondent adjective: in low spirits from loss of hope or courage.

Adjective

despondent (comparative more despondent, superlative most despondent)

  1. In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.
    • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn...1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans...
    • “Last year, I was despondent that it was so hard to dislodge the iron grip of Google,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, who previously oversaw advertising for Google, including Search ads, and now runs Neeva. “But technological moments like this create an opportunity for more competition.”2022 December 21, Nico Grant, Cade Metz, quoting Sridhar Ramaswamy, “A New Chat Bot Is a ‘Code Red’ for Google’s Search Business”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

despondent meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

despondent in Hindi

despondent, heartsick, despirited, downcast
मायूस māyūs

despondent in Urdu

despondent, despirited, downcast, heartsick
مایوس māyūs

despondent in Bengali

হতাশ, নিরাশ, নিরাশ্বাস, বিষণ্ণ, বিমর্ষ, মনমরা

despondent in Malayalam

ആശയറ്റ, അധൈര്യപ്പെട്ട, വ്യസനമുള്ള, വിഷണ്ണം
More languagesFewer languages
despondent in Sanskrit
खिन्न khinna
despondent in Arabic
قَانِط qāniṭ, أَسْوَان ʔaswān, بَائِس bāʔis, حَزِين ḥazīn
despondent in Thai
ท้อ tɔ́ɔ, ท้อแท้
despondent in Vietnamese
chán nản

Synonyms of despondent

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of despondent

Forms of despondent

comparativemore despondent
superlativemost despondent

Origin of despondent

From Latin dēspondēns, from the verb despondere (“to give up, to abandon”).

Words formed from despondent

Questions about despondent

What does despondent mean?
Despondent means in low spirits from loss of hope or courage.
What is despondent in Hindi?
Despondent in Hindi is मायूस (māyūs). See Despondent meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is despondent?
Despondent is an adjective.
How do you pronounce despondent?
Despondent is pronounced /dɪˈspɒndənt/ (UK).

Words near despondent in the dictionary

  1. desponded
  2. despondence
  3. despondences
  4. despondencies
  5. despondency
  6. despondent
  7. despondently
  8. desponder
  9. desponders
  10. despondest
  11. despondeth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: despondent (page history and authors); मायूस (Hindi) (page history and authors); مایوس (Urdu) (page history and authors); despondent (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); despondent (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-despondent.wav.

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