Word.ws English Dictionary

dismays

dismays is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dismay.

Meaning of dismay

Verb

dismay (third-person singular simple present dismays, present participle dismaying, simple past and past participle dismayed)

  1. To cause to feel apprehension; great sadness, or fear; to deprive of energy.
    • Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Josh i:9
    Synonyms:
    daunt, appall, terrify
  2. To render lifeless; to subdue; to disquiet.
    • Do not dismay yourself for this.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 40
  3. To take dismay or fright; to be filled with dismay.
    • Dismay not, princes, at this accident,1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

See all 5 meanings of dismay

Questions about dismays

What is dismays the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Dismays is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dismay.

Words near dismays in the dictionary

  1. dismayful
  2. dismayfully
  3. dismaying
  4. dismayingly
  5. dismayings
  6. dismays
  7. disme
  8. dismember
  9. dismembered
  10. dismemberer
  11. dismemberers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dismays (page history and authors); dismay (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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Cite this entry: “dismays.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dismays. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.