deject
Americanverb (used with object)
adjective
verb
adjective
Etymology
Origin of deject
1375–1425; late Middle English dejecten (v.) < Latin dējectus (past participle of dējicere to throw down), equivalent to dē- de- + -jec-, combining form of jacere to throw + -tus past participle suffix
Explanation
To deject is to make someone feel really, really sad. Few things will deject you more than losing your very favorite scarf — the one your grandmother knit — on the subway. This verb is rarely used these days, so you're most likely to find it in an old book— the adjective dejected is much more common. Both words come from the earlier verb dejecten, "to throw or cast down," from the Latin deicere, "to cast down, destroy, or defeat." The more figurative "make sad" meaning appeared around 1500. If you really want to deject someone, play them some melancholy music when they're already sad about their lost cat.
Vocabulary lists containing deject
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.
This way they can get more skilled personnel and also effectively deject any missiles from Yemen.
From New York Times • Dec. 4, 2017
Beautifully 'a lady most deject and wretched,' she intones the bitter honeyed lines as if they were her own, and Ophelia's, not alone Shakespeare's.
From Time Magazine Archive
Yet better the excess Than the deject; better the more than less; Better like Hector in the field to die, Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
From Time Magazine Archive
I am all disordered: I know not what I am saying to your Majesty: I am of all ladies most deject and wretched— SHAKESPEAR.
From Dark Lady of the Sonnets by Shaw, Bernard
Humiliated also by the cold reception he had met and by the consciousness of extreme unpopularity in both armies, he was embarrassed and deject.
From The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power by Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
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.
