dishearten
Americanverb (used with object)
-
disheartens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disheartened,
past participle, past
-
disheartening
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
disheartensimple
-
disheartenssimple
-
have disheartenedperfect
-
has disheartenedperfect
-
am dishearteningprogressive
-
are dishearteningprogressive
-
is dishearteningprogressive
-
have been dishearteningperfect progressive
-
has been dishearteningperfect progressive
Past
-
disheartenedsimple
-
had disheartenedperfect
-
was dishearteningprogressive
-
were dishearteningprogressive
-
had been dishearteningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dishearten
Explanation
If someone tells you not to be disheartened, they want you to stay upbeat and positive. Something that brings you down or steals your sense of hope disheartens you. Uncracking the code of the verb dishearten couldn't be easier. Just take it apart, and it quickly reveals its meaning. Dis- is a prefix that means "not, un-, take away." Heart in its figurative sense means love, care, and good feelings. And the -en at the end shows the word is a verb with the sense of causing something to be. So dishearten means "to cause someone's 'heart' to be taken away." We were disheartened by the news of still more home foreclosures.
Vocabulary lists containing dishearten
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 2
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Starfish
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The Thing About Luck
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Many young voters say that would dishearten them.
From Barron's ● Feb. 3, 2026
I began to wonder what we were going to find in this wasteland, but I didn’t want to say anything to dishearten Duncan.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
In “On Fire,” Naomi Klein’s purpose is not to dishearten but to awaken us to the growing global movement called the Green New Deal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2023
Each day, 22 people die in want of organs, which should dishearten all Americans.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2023
“Do not be dishearten, young bahss. Today, we will be foun, to be true.”
From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor
“It saddens me, it disgusts me and disheartens me,” Alvarez said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2023
"It disgusts me and disheartens me that people in our nation seem incapable of being decent people."
From Salon ● Nov. 23, 2022
It allows those who are responsible to remain unaccountable, and it disheartens those who seek to do the right thing.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 2, 2021
“These words have no place on News10NBC’s air, and the fact that we broadcast them disheartens and disgusts me; that it was not caught immediately is inexcusable,” he said in the statement.
From Slate ● Jan. 8, 2019
It sinks our spirits, disheartens our soldiers, makes them both idle and wicked.
From Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution with a Memoir of Mrs. Adams by Abigail Adams
I am disheartened by the merely contemporary and hence indifferent to every fad.
From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026
He speculated that scholars and Americans in general were too disheartened by Vietnam to want to contemplate a traumatic rupture like the Civil War.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
"I am disheartened and sad each and every day... that we are told immigrants, which most of us are or descended from are unwelcome," wrote the 84-year-old Stewart.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
A pair of jeans could easily be a size 10 by one brand and a size 14 in another, leaving customers confused and disheartened.
From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2025
He looked very disheartened, “My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”
From "The Pigman" by Paul Zindel
"It is disheartening to see news channels," said Sukhjeet Narula, 28, a software professional.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
“That’s really kind of disheartening — that we’ve tried our best to mitigate fires ... yet fires are destroying more homes,” said Amanda Carlson, a research scientist with the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
After decades of looking forward to the freedom of a less stressful lifestyle, it is disheartening to be faced with difficult choices when income and savings fall short.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
What’s disheartening is that she pretends there is no connection, telling Vogue Italia last week, “Algorithms and artificial intelligence are the opposite of taking risks to me, and that is the opposite of making art.”
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
The bleak line of shore surrounding the gray harbor was a disheartening contrast to the shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados which was her home.
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
