Past tense of despair
regular verb
The past tense of despair is despaired. The past participle is also despaired.
Forms of despair
| Base form (V1) | despair /dɪˈspɛə(ɹ)/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | despaired |
| Past participle (V3) | despaired |
| Present participle | despairing /dɪˈspɛə.ɹɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | despairs |
Despaired in a sentence
- Thinking of what I was despairing about despaired me further2019, Tim Dee, Landfill
- Despaired of losing all the data accumulated since the last CD backup, but then remembered an old Knoppix CD in the drawer.2006 April 26, BrianM, “Knoppix is Kneat”, in nz.comp (Usenet). From the entry unfsckable
- Not long after the start Mr Bhosh was chagrined to discover that he was all behindhand, and he almost despaired of overtaking any of his fore-runners.1902, F. Anstey, chapter 13, in A Bayard from Bengal, London: Methuen, pages 97–98. From the entry behindhand
Meaning of despair
- verb To give up as beyond hope or expectation; to despair of.
- verb To cause to despair.
- verb To be hopeless; to have no hope; to give up all hope or expectation.
Questions about the past tense of despair
- What is the past tense of despair?
- The past tense of despair is despaired.
- What is the past participle of despair?
- The past participle of despair is despaired.
- Is despair a regular or irregular verb?
- Despair is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: despair (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this page: “Past tense of despair.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/despair. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.