Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use desperation in a sentence

39 example sentences · noun

Desperation means the act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up of hope. Example: “She took advantage of his desperation.”

Examples of desperation by meaning

nounReckless fury.

  • "The PM’s private reassurances are worthless given her track record of u-turns and her clear desperation to cling to power."2017 June 11, “DUP leader hails 'good progress' with Theresa May”, in The Scotsman, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2025

More sentences with desperation

  • She took advantage of his desperation.From the entry take advantage of
  • Benedict Donald’s desperation to get attention off the TrumpStein Files is showing daily.2025 August 19, Dawna Stromsoe, “The Jim Acosta Show with Joyce Vance James Glancy and Elise Labott”, in Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance…. From the entry Trumpstein files
  • Friends say we app sceptics will download them at a certain age out of desperation.2023 April 1, Maddie Thomas, “Even if you’re ‘on the apps’, it feels pretty hard to meet people these days”, in The Guardian. From the entry prince charming
  • “Tank, the Chumpette, forgot to put up his chair again,” she says in mock desperation.2016 September 1, Andrea K. Milinki, Cases in Qualitative Research: Research Reports for Discussion and Evaluation, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry chumpette
  • These walls, under close examination, reveal messages carved in desperation by long ago victims.2005, Annabelle du Fouet, “The murky world from whence it all came” (chapter 2), in Weather Balloons Make Rotten Sex Toys, Ellora's Cave…. From the entry heartrending
  • That and desperation to get out of the woods and away from her daddy.2003, Janice Daugharty, “You’re No Angel Yourself”, in Hugh Ruppersburg, editor, After O’Connor: Stories from Contemporary Georgia…. From the entry mama
  • In desperation, people often turn to potent pain-killing medication for relief.1999, Abraham J Twerski, It's Not As Tough As You Think: How to Smooth Out Life's Bumps. From the entry light at the end of the tunnel
  • I liken the exuberance of astrophiles to the desperation of cancer patients.1997 January 12, John Ladasky, “Re: Space junk??? Not here. Time for a new newsgroup?”, in alt.politics.greens (Usenet). From the entry astrophilia
  • A bedjacket speaks of desperation, and what it says is: toodle-oo.1993, Carol Shields, chapter 9, in The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, page 331. From the entry bedjacket
  • At last, in desperation, he began to give her what she wanted.1989, anonymous author, chapter 1, in Champions of Pleasure, Nexus Books, page 14. From the entry lower mouth
  • Collectively, the fun shops of Westport exude an aura of franticity, of desperation.1973, Stephen Birmingham, “Fairfield County: Perilous Preserve”, in The Right Places, Boston, Mass.; Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and…. From the entry franticity
  • Foxholes teem with atheists—who, to be sure, frequently infringe the Third Commandment in their desperation.1962, Hoxie Neale Fairchild, Religious Trends in English Poetry: 1880-1920: Gods of a Changing Poetry, Columbia University Press, page 378. From the entry foxhole
  • At last in desperation the excited man fed the bird a strychnine pill.1903, George Ade, The Sultan of Sulu: An Original Satire in Two Acts, page 8. From the entry feeze
  • Shameless e-begging, or a justified act of financial desperation?2016, Meet the students crowdfunding their tuition, The Guardian. From the entry e-begging
  • The Pendant shone a scene of desperation and seduction.2014, The Garden of Hope and Despair: A Clash of Myths, page 152. From the entry trolless
  • To his contemporaries, his desperation seemed like a search for the "God particle," something seen as daft, even obstructionist.2010, Mu Soeng, The Heart of the Universe: Exploring the Heart Sutra, →ISBN, page 40. From the entry God particle
  • Like other sidearmers, O’Day found salvation out of desperation.2009 March 19, Ben rShpigel, “Medicine’s Loss Could Be the Mets’ Gain”, in New York Times. From the entry sidearmer
  • Out of desperation promoters hit upon the idea of marathon events - walkathons, danceathons, and almost inevitably skateathons.2009, Adam Russ, 101 Sports Not to Try, page 140. From the entry danceathon
  • To get Lance Bronson hard, Chi Chi, in desperation, called Sharon Kane to come and fluff him on the set.2008, Blue Blake, Out of the Blue: Confessions of an Unlikely Porn Star, page 187. From the entry fluff
  • In an act of desperation, he stabbed himself in the stomach with a four-inch nail-cutter and jammed in a fountain pen.2007 May 20, Ambika Ahuja, “Hmong refugees from Laos, with nowhere to go, fear being sent back”, in The Bay City Times, volume 134, number…. From the entry nail-cutter
  • An air of desperation hung over her like Dior's Poison.2004, Julia Llewellyn, The Love Trainer. From the entry on the pull
  • The research for that really disturbed me because so many of the Mouseketeers were living lives of quiet desperation.2004, Robert William Kubey, Creating television. From the entry Mouseketeer
  • The whole notion smacks of spoiled bratness or desperation.1997 May, Michael A. Goldstein, “Getting Paid: Finding a Job” (chapter 1), in How the Real World Really Works: Graduating into the Rest of…. From the entry bratness
  • The world of “Cementville,” for instance, is that of third-rate arenas and the desperation pseudosport of wrestling, female division.1991 May 1, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 102ᵈ Congress, First Session, volumes 137—part 7, Washington, D.C.…. From the entry gladiatress
  • With savage desperation the Indian lunged his horse straight at Hopalong and, knife in hand, leaped for him!1951, Louis L'Amour, Rustlers of West Fork. From the entry indian
  • Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi’s flashy revival of Laptopgate hasn’t illuminated much beyond the right’s desperation to salvage something from their October Surprise.2022 June 12, Alex Shephard, “Why the Right Can’t Quit Hunter Biden”, in The New Republic. From the entry Laptopgate
  • In desperation with seasonal sinus flare-up, I pulled out my coconut oil with a drop of peppermint and oil pulled for 20 minutes.2015, Dr. Michelle Coleman, Oil Pulling Revolution. From the entry oil pull
  • When he arrived in An-hui, near the city of Xuan-cheng, he decided out of desperation to seek shelter in a monastery on Mount Huang.2004 [2002], François Cheng, translated by Timothy Bent, Green Mountain, White Cloud, New York: St. Martin's Press, translation of…. From the entry An-hui
  • Bezul saw the sell-swords choose the doorway, not him, and somehow got in front of them, then desperation took control of his mind.2003, Lynn Abbey, "The Red Lucky", Thieves' World: Turning Points, Macmillan,, →ISBN, page 303. From the entry sell-sword
  • As an indication of the miners' desperation in these years, the free miners of Wensley lowered themselves to caving for scraps of ore.1999, Andy Wood, The Politics of Social Conflict: The Peak Country, 1520-1770, →ISBN, page 319. From the entry cave
  • I got hemmed in by the werewolf again and, in desperation, tried an experimental new wand on it; and polymorphed it into a black pudding.1999, Robin Johnson, “My gnomish healer has been having a rough time of it”, in rec.games.roguelike.nethack (Usenet). From the entry polymorph
  • The plot traces the shock, shame, bitterness and desperation of a singularly nice young widow and mother unable to prove her marriage after an elopment.1957 December 14, “'Eighteen and Anxious' Opens at Paramount”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry elopment
  • So we've all probably sadfished offline before, but online, there's a whiff of social desperation to it, just like there is any time people overshare on the internet.2023 September 7, “Why People On Social Media Feel Compelled To Share 'Sadfishing' Posts”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 09…. From the entry sadfish
  • Jeong’s florid persona — pitched at the edge of desperation — and everything else on screen, which stays within the boundaries of a network family series.2015 September 30, Mike Hale, “Review: In ‘Dr. Ken’ on ABC, Ken Jeong Is a Physician With Jokes”, in New York Times. From the entry cringefest
  • The young witches made their relationship official — in the Biblical sense — and Welch’s howling entreaty, “I’d do anything to make you stay,” expressed their yearning and desperation.2012 March 23, Lanford Beard, “TV Jukebox: 'The Secret Circle,' 'The Voice,' 'Switched at Birth,' and more music-on-TV moments”, in…. From the entry in the biblical sense
  • There was something behind that superfake smile of hers (a whiff of desperation?) that made Tiernan pretty sure Summer wasn't here to reconnect with her old middle school pals.2012, Hilary Weisman Graham, Reunited, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 35. From the entry superfake
  • The rooter was terrorized, what with the mechanical noises right behind it, and it abandoned evasive turns and darts and made for the horizon with pitiful desperation.1994, Paul Quarrington, Civilization: And Its Part in My Downfall, page 205. From the entry rooter
  • Leninism might be defined as the desperate form of Marxism, an attempt to save Marxism by Machiavellizing it, but Marx's own work is in my view also marked by desperation.1987, Eric Bentley, Thinking about the Playwright: Comments from Four Decades. From the entry machiavellize

Meaning of desperation

  1. noun The act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up of hope.
  2. noun A state of despair, or utter hopelessness; abandonment of hope.
  3. noun Reckless fury.

Full definition of desperation

Questions about desperation in a sentence

How do you use desperation in a sentence?
Desperation is used as a noun. For example: “She took advantage of his desperation.”
What is a short sentence with desperation?
“She took advantage of his desperation.”
What does desperation mean?
Desperation means the act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up of hope.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: desperation (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use desperation in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/desperation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.