desperate

comparative more desperate · comparative proscribed rare desperater · superlative most desperate · proscribed superlative desperatest

1. In dire need (of something); having a dire need or desire.

   desperate to eat; desperate for attention

   1 more example

   I hadn't eaten in two days and was desperate for food.

2. Being filled with, or in a state of, despair; hopeless.

   I was so desperate at one point, I even went to see a loan shark.

   3 more examples

   Since his exile she hath despised me most, Forsworn my company and rail'd at me, That I am desperate of obtaining her.

   c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   “[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert's desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high-explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from the aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to bits of debris, and the line to a huge crater.

   2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43

3. Beyond hope, leaving little reason for hope; causing despair; extremely perilous.

   a desperate disease; desperate fortune

4. Involving or employing extreme measures, without regard to danger or safety; reckless due to hopelessness.

   He dove into the rushing waters in a desperate effort to save her life.

   3 more examples

   In England his flute was not in request; there were no convents; and he was forced to have recourse to a series of desperate expedients.

   1879, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “GOLDSMITH, Oliver”, in The Encyclopædia Britannica […] , Ninth edition, Volume X, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, page 761, column 2

   “I knew very well that when the Peruvian Indian does anything wrong it is because he is forced to it by oppression and made desperate by abuse,” replied Lucia.

   1904, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Birds Without a Nest: A Story of Indian Life and Priestly Oppression in Peru, page 218

   Humankind's global integration makes biological combat a weapon of choice for desperate killers, who are either suicidal or intend to infect others […]

   2016, Hans-Martin Sass, Cultures in Bioethics, LIT Verlag Münster, →ISBN, page 239

5. Extremely bad; outrageous, shocking; intolerable.

   a desperate offendress against nature

   c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   4 more examples

   The worst that can be laid to the charge of this poor youth, whom it has been the fashion to represent as the most desperate of reprobates, as a village Rochester, is, that he had a great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in themselves, but condemned by the rigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose opinion he had a great respect.

   1876, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “BUNYAN, John”, in The Encyclopædia Britannica […] , Ninth edition, Volume IV, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, page 526, column 2

   The letters which were of most importance were in half a dozen languages and in the desperate handwriting of the period. Eminent men in that age thought it - like Hamlet - a baseness to write fair. Often at the end of a page I have[…]

   1898, Longman's Magazine, page 161

   She pictured having a boyfriend over and losing him when he saw her desperate taste in shampoo; however, the chances of that happening were slim.

   (Can we date this quote?), Stopping Inertia, Dorrance Publishing, →ISBN, page 131

   Whoever's writing the stuff on this has desperate handwriting, like they must be a doctor...

   2022 September 2, Irish People Try American-Style Pancakes, circa 8:12

6. Intense; extremely intense.

   She enraged some country ladies with three times her money, by a sort of desperate perfection which they found in her.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   1 more example

   For Liverpool, it capped six days of desperate disappointment after missing out on the Premier League to Manchester City by a single point then losing to this experienced, street-smart Real team.

   2022 May 28, Phil McCulty, “Liverpool 0-1 Real Madrid”, in BBC Sport

comparative more desperate · superlative most desperate

1. USdialectalDesperately.

plural desperates

1. A person in desperate circumstances or who is at the point of desperation, such as a down-and-outer, addict, etc.