wanhope

plural wanhopes

1. UKarchaicdialectaluncountableusuallyLack of hope; hopelessness; despair.

   So stood they there both awhile in wanhope, sorrowing one with other.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 368

   2 more examples

   Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis,[…]

   1898, Georgiana Lea Morril, editor, Speculum Gy de Warewyke: An English Poem, page 57

   Both despair and wanhope are generally defined as a complete loss or lack of hope and being overcome by sense of futility or defeat.

   2007, Michael D. C. Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia: scholarship and critical assessment

   Synonyms: despond, unhope, despair, desperation, despond, despondency, hopelessness, unhope

2. uncountableusuallyVain hope; overconfidence; delusion.

   Synonyms: pie in the sky, pipe dream