DESPERATE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Desperate

Translators

Dictionaries

Courses

Other

Home

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/dˈɛsprɪt/ /dˈɛspərɪt/ Listen

adjective

Desperate adj.

Without hope; given to despair; hopeless. (Obs.) "I am desperate of obtaining her."

Beyond hope; causing despair; extremely perilous; irretrievable; past cure, or, at least, extremely dangerous; as, a desperate disease; desperate fortune.

Proceeding from, or suggested by, despair; without regard to danger or safety; reckless; furious; as, a desperate effort. "Desperate expedients."

Extreme, in a bad sense; outrageous; used to mark the extreme predominance of a bad quality. "A desperate offendress against nature." "The most desperate of reprobates."

Synonyms: Hopeless; despairing; desponding; rash; headlong; precipitate; irretrievable; irrecoverable; forlorn; mad; furious; frantic.

noun

Desperate n. One desperate or hopeless. (Obs.)

See images of 'Desperate'

Etymology of 'Desperate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Desperate" Quotes from Famous Books

... peace; and casting Edith from his arms, he set the example of attack or flight—Roland scarcely knew which,—by leaping against the breast of the daring intruder. Both fell together across the threshold, and Roland obeying the call with desperate and frantic ardour, stumbled over their bodies, pitching headlong into the passage, whereby he escaped the certain death that otherwise awaited him, three several rifle-shots having been that instant poured upon him from a distance ...

— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... upon him, and as it grew heavier and heavier, he felt that he was being crushed to the earth. Then a feeling of unworthiness that even the earth should hold him up and keep him from instant destruction in hell until God in his mercy would deliver him swept over him, and in his desperate condition he cried out until his voice was heard all over the camp-ground, and the people in crowds came to discover, if possible, what was ...

— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... the drama; but to it we must equally attribute the fights of wild beasts among the Romans, nay, even the combats of the gladiators. But must we, less indurated, and more inclined to tender feelings, require demi-gods and heroes to descend, like so many desperate gladiators, into the bloody arena of the tragic stage, in order to agitate our nerves by the spectacle of their sufferings? No: it is not the sight of suffering which constitutes the charm of a tragedy, or even of the games of the circus, or of the fight ...

— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... already moving from Grant's army to the relief of Knoxville. Bragg had also sent to him a staff officer with exhortations to prompt action. For a day or two Longstreet tried to attract Burnside's attention to the south of the river and to other parts of the lines, and then on the 28th prepared a desperate assault upon the great salient of ...

— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... do," said Tom, after an investigation. "As you say, there is more of that hard rock than we calculated on. To try to blast and take it out in the ordinary way will be useless. We must try desperate means." ...

— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

More quotes...