Meanings
adjectivedespairful (comparative more despairful, superlative most despairful)
comparative more despairful · superlative most despairful
- Characterised by despair; hopeless.
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, →OCLC1 more example
[…] 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
Synonyms & antonyms
Also see
Origin
Cite this entry
APA
despairful. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/despairful
MLA
“despairful.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/despairful. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “despairful,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/despairful.
Source: despairful on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.