Definitions

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

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of despair.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Thereupon Shams al-Din despaired of finding his brother and said, Indeed I went beyond all bounds in what I said to him with reference to the marriage of our children.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Another colleague told Time that Ann once "despaired" of her son ever having a social conscience, a fear that was put to rest when he became a community organizer in Chicago.

    Linda Keenan: Dreams From His Mother 2008

  • Actually, in the scientific community now, a lot of them have kind of despaired of ever being able to stop it at a doubled world.

    Vp Remarks On Global Climate Change ITY National Archives 1997

  • And the friar bade him beware, for such as despaired, (he said) died miserable.

    Romeo and Juliet 1878

  • The Bishop "despaired," as he well might, "of ever seeing it proved that the whole earth had been peopled before the Deluge."

    The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed Hugh Miller 1829

  • And the friar bade him beware, for such as despaired (he said) died miserable.

    Tales from Shakespeare Mary Lamb 1805

  • And the friar bade him beware, for such as despaired, (he said) died miserable.

    Tales from Shakespeare Mary Lamb 1805

  • Marshall said he had "despaired" that the police department (at that time 17 percent black in a city that was 33 percent black) would ever come up with a remedy on it own; he was therefore imposing on the department a 42 percent minority hiring quota for males and a

    Chicago Reader 2010

  • But as returning passengers spoke of how they "despaired" of ever getting home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the time taken to reopen UK airspace, stressing that passengers had to be "safe and secure".

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2010

  • But as returning passengers spoke of how they "despaired" of ever getting home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the time taken to reopen UK airspace, stressing that passengers had to be "safe and secure".

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2010

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