respair

1. obsoleteuncountableFresh hope; recovery from despair.

   For a moment he remained sunk in a kind of dull and apathetic respair.

   1914, George Allan England, ““You Speak English!””, in Darkness and Dawn: Illustrated, Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Small, Maynard, and Company, page 339

   2 more examples

   Springing from his seat on a fallen tree, where he had sunk in his respair, he cried in genuine gladness:

   1907, Roy Rockwood, “Put to the Test”, in Jack North's Treasure Hunt, Or, Daring Adventures in South America, Chatterton-Peck Company, page 105

   Your new essay collection, On Witness and Respair, contains an unusual word most of our readers would have never heard of—“respair,” meaning “fresh hope.” Where did you find that?

   [2026 June 4, Jamilah King, “The Obscure Word That Helped Novelist Jesmyn Ward Process Her Grief”, in Mother Jones, →ISSN, →OCLC, retrieved 04 Jun 2026, Bold and italics in original

   Antonyms: despair

present singular third person respairs · participle present respairing · participle past respaired · past respaired

1. obsoleteTo recover from despair.