Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The state of being dejected; low spirits.
  • noun Evacuation of the intestinal tract; defecation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In geology, volcanic debris; a sediment of volcanic origin.
  • noun The act of casting down; a casting down; prostration.
  • noun Depression; diminution.
  • noun In medicine: Fecal discharge; evacuation.
  • noun The matter discharged or voided; dejecta: often in the plural: as, the dejections of cholera; watery dejections.
  • noun 4. The state of being downcast; depression or lowness of spirits; melancholy.
  • noun In astrology, the house furthest removed from the exaltation of a planet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Obs. or Archaic A casting down; depression.
  • noun The act of humbling or abasing one's self.
  • noun Lowness of spirits occasioned by grief or misfortune; mental depression; melancholy.
  • noun rare A low condition; weakness; inability.
  • noun The discharge of excrement.
  • noun Fæces; excrement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a state of melancholy or depression; low spirits, the blues
  • noun The act of humbling or abasing oneself.
  • noun A low condition; weakness; inability.
  • noun medicine, archaic Defecation or feces.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a state of melancholy depression
  • noun solid excretory product evacuated from the bowels

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin dejectio ("a casting down").

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Examples

  • Those most disillusioned by Blair's career are those who believed he really was something quite out of the ordinary: the dejection is the greater because he promised so much. —

    The Paradoxical Case of Tony Blair 2004

  • Those most disillusioned by Blair's career are those who believed he really was something quite out of the ordinary: the dejection is the greater because he promised so much. —

    The Paradoxical Case of Tony Blair 2004

  • Holmqvist was left bowed forward on his knees in dejection, his helmet touching the ice, after the game-winner.

    USATODAY.com 2007

  • If he was off by more than ten minutes he would fain dejection and wouldn't feel right about himself until the next time I quizzed him and he guessed within the window.

    All we need is Blog? Ed 2004

  • If he was off by more than ten minutes he would fain dejection and wouldn't feel right about himself until the next time I quizzed him and he guessed within the window.

    Archive 2004-07-01 Ed 2004

  • [Page 103] been surprised to feel, not only cheerfulness, but hilarity returning to my heart from no apparent cause, and when circumstances which had plunged me in dejection remain unchanged.

    Memoirs, Correspondence and Poetical Remains of Jane Taylor 1832

  • Lionel in dejection was as sad as it was new to her, and she resolved, in conjunction with Camilla, to spare him till the next day, when his feelings might be less acute.

    Camilla: or, A Picture of Youth 1796

  • To her, however, his dejection was a revival; she read in it her power, and hoped her present plan would finally confirm it.

    Camilla 2008

  • The dejection, which is the opposite quality to this sort of pride, may be defined as pain arising from the false opinion, whereby a man may think himself inferior to his fellows.

    The Ethics 2007

  • Grief, from opinion of want of power, is called dejection of mind.

    Leviathan 2007

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