Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use hopeless in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective

Hopeless means without hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive. Example: “He's a hopeless writer, but can draw very well.”

Examples of hopeless by meaning

adjectiveWithout hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive.

  • Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  • A gaoler struck him, pushing him back in place in the hopeless, helpless line of prisoners.1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 41

adjectiveWithout talent, not skilled.

  • He's a hopeless writer, but can draw very well.
  • "The Press is hopeless.1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html)...

adjectiveOf an adverse condition, incurable.

  • She is a hopeless romantic.
  • He is a hopeless idler.

More sentences with hopeless

  • He considered the former tooling hopeless, and he reported its hopelessness to his boss right away.From the entry hopelessness
  • There was a hopeless disconnection between the weary, old teacher and the spirited, young students.From the entry disconnection
  • On the face of it, his case seemed hopeless. But appearances can be deceptive.From the entry on the face of it
  • Even in this hopeless situation, I don't feel like my number's up.2014 December 16, Fujino Omori, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 1 (light novel), Yen Press LLC, →ISBN. From the entry someone's number is up
  • But in nearly every other way the ex-coppers are hopeless as PIs.2012, Marian Keyes, The Mystery of Mercy Close Ch.5 p.35 (Penguin 2012). From the entry woegeous
  • Punning, and competition therein, was encouraged—nay, actively abetted—by Callahan, himself a hopeless and utterly shameless paronomasiac.2004, Spider Robinson, Off The Wall At Callahan's, Macmillan, page 9. From the entry paronomasiac
  • Couch said, adding that he believed scientists had begun to view cold research as "a hopeless area."1987 October 6, Gina Kolata, “Clever Strategy Shows Promise Against Colds”, in The New York Times. From the entry kinin
  • However, the present situation, though serious, is by no means desperate or hopeless.1958, President Dwight Eisenhower, 3:06 from the start, in President Eisenhower Speaks On The Formosa Situation (1958), British Pathé. From the entry weaken
  • It is just as hopeless to overbreed the under-cultured, as it is to underbreed the cultural.1948, Harold Lark Harris, Decentralization, page 24. From the entry underbreed
  • It looks rather hopeless, doesn't it, Mr Carrados?' she remarked professionally.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries. From the entry h'm
  • The problem does not appear so hopeless when misleading metaphor is discarded.1926, A[rthur] [S]tanley Eddington, “Survey of the Problem”, in The Internal Constitution of the Stars, page 1. From the entry misleading
  • "Nothing is as bad as a marriage that's a hopeless failure.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Death in the Family”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC, part I, page 132. From the entry by a long chalk
  • Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses.1901 [1878], chapter 20, in Constance Garnett, transl., Anna Karenina, translation of Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) by Leo Tolstoy, part 7. From the entry mistress
  • Corbynism was as hopeful as it was hopeless.2022 June 8, Neal Lawson, “Keir Starmer, you have a golden opportunity. Now try a bit of Corbynism”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry Corbynism
  • They can open new discussions, generate new ideas and disrupt the hopeless discourse of political corruption in Ukraine.2018, Oksana Huss, “Corruption, Crisis, and Change: Use and Misuse of an Empty Signifier”, in Erica Resende, Dovilė Budrytė, Didiem…. From the entry deoligarchization
  • It is not hopeless sorrow or resentment, but sheer staggerment.2010, David McCasland, Oswald Chambers, Abandoned to God: The Life Story of the Author of My Utmost for His Highest. From the entry staggerment
  • If the dough has been forgotten for hours, it's hopeless.2008, Cindy Mushet, “Yeast Breads and Rolls”, in The Art and Soul of Baking, Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, →ISBN, page 70. From the entry overproof
  • "That sounds pretty hopeless," Holly said down-heartedly.2007, Hildegard Caringi, Once Upon a Sandcastle, →ISBN, page 140. From the entry down-heartedly
  • The fish-and-chipperies, the souvenir shops and the penny arcades look forlorn and winter hopeless, two steps from abandonment.2006, Joe Bennett, Mustn’t Grumble: An Accidental Return to England, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 215. From the entry fish-and-chippery
  • And the computer keepers were always hopeless on free kicks.1997, Mark Howson, “Kick Off 2: Best Amiga Game Of all time!”, in comp.sys.amiga.games (Usenet). From the entry aftertouch
  • And didn't he think her hair was hopeless, kerblamming out the way it did in the slightest bit of humidity?1985, Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist, Knopf, →ISBN, page 211. From the entry kerblam
  • The windshield wipers were swacking rapidly back and forth in a hopeless attempt to clear away the sheets of water.1983, Julia Howard, A Lasting Image, page 154. From the entry swack
  • Secondly, we must avoid any temptation towards hopeless self indulgence.1978, Commonwealth Record (Australia) - Volume 3, Issues 1-25, page 104. From the entry self indulgence
  • I remembered the pinched and hopeless look of poverty I saw on the faces of the Mexican-American children I had taught.1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 104. From the entry remember
  • It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny.1971, Kurt Vonnegut, “Running Experiments Off: An Interview”, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut. From the entry gallows humor
  • “I'll let you know if it's hopeless.”1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 102. From the entry marv
  • "Magic," said the hopeless old maid of yesterday.1929, Ruth Sapinsky, “Starlight, Starbright”, in Werner's Readings and Recitations, volume 22, page 221. From the entry wish on a star
  • No three tramps that one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and bedraggled.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter XIV, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC. From the entry bedraggled
  • “That's only dirt—it will brush off.” But he looked at me with his haggard hopeless eyes and said— “It is mud.1911 October, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Journey”, in The Forerunner: A Monthly Magazine, volume II, number 10, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry defile
  • The second class of parishioners were less Philistine, certainly, but even more hopeless from the parish priest’s point of view.1904, Guy Thorne, chapter 2, in When It Was Dark, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 7. From the entry indifferentism
  • Ah, Luna! you may hide your face; And, Doctor, you're a hopeless case, If you allow yourself to chase The silly moonbeams without discretion.2023, Charles Billingslea, The Addison Reunion Papers, page 216. From the entry chase moonbeams
  • This phrase follows the logic of the blackpill that life is hopeless for incels due to their inability to reach stereotypical standards of masculinity.2020, Anne Jones, Incels and the Manosphere: Tracking Men's Movements Online (thesis submitted to the University of Central Florida), page…. From the entry black pill
  • The ‘blackpills’ (read: hopeless nihilists) amongst them share ‘suifuel’ (suicidal rant) posts stating there’s no hope, and encouraging fellow incels to kill themselves.2020 February 19, Jake Hall, “Investigating the insidious rise of the gay incel”, in Dazed. From the entry suifuel
  • Ultimately, the de-extremization campaign will produce a hopeless and angry group of Uyghurs that will undermine Xinjiang’s long-term security, stability, and development.2016, Patrik Meyer, China's De-extremization of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, →OCLC, page 2. From the entry de-extremization

Meaning of hopeless

  1. adjective Without hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive.
  2. adjective Giving no ground of hope; promising nothing desirable; desperate.
  3. adjective Without talent, not skilled.

Full definition of hopeless

Questions about hopeless in a sentence

How do you use hopeless in a sentence?
Hopeless is used as an adjective. For example: “He's a hopeless writer, but can draw very well.”
What is a short sentence with hopeless?
“"The Press is hopeless.”
What does hopeless mean?
Hopeless means without hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hopeless (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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