despairful en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /dɪˈspɛːfəl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
From despair + -ful.
Meanings
-
Characterised by despair; hopeless.
[…] wretches, whose vnhappie cace, / After lost credite and consumed thrift, / At last them driuen hath to this despairefull drift.
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:The captain went forward interfering rather than assisting. I was alternately despairful and desperate.
1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Chapter 5”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896, →OCLC:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| most despairful | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| more despairful | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |