hopeless

2. Hopeless, despairing, despondent, desperate all describe an absence of hope. Hopeless is used of a feeling of futility and passive abandonment of oneself to fate: Hopeless and grim, he still clung to the cliff. Despairing refers to the loss of hope in regard to a particular situation, whether important or trivial; it suggests an intellectual judgment concerning probabilities: despairing of victory; despairing of finding his gloves. Despondent always suggests melancholy and depression; it refers to an emotional state rather than to an intellectual judgment: Despondent over his failing career, he fell back into substance and alcohol use. At the end of her marriage, she became despondent and suspicious. Desperate conveys a suggestion of recklessness resulting from loss of hope: As the time grew shorter, he became desperate. It may also refer to something arising from extreme need or danger: a desperate remedy; a desperate situation. See also despair.

OTHER WORDS FROM hopeless

hope·less·ly, adverbhope·less·ness, noun

Words nearby hopeless

Hope diamond, hopeful, hopefully, hopeful monster, Hopeh, hopeless, hopelessness, hopepunk, Hope springs eternal, Hopewell, hophead

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use hopeless in a sentence

When you’re under stress and feel hopeless, it’s more likely that these conflicts spiral into violence.
What Can Mayors Do When the Police Stop Doing Their Jobs?|by Alec MacGillis|September 3, 2020|ProPublica
Helpless, hopeless, despondent, all sorts of sad emotions in the English language that you can think of.
Podcast: How a 135-year-old law lets India shutdown the internet|Anthony Green|September 2, 2020|MIT Technology Review
While it may feel hopeless to see all of this unfold, just remember that you can still take responsibility in securing the health of yourself and the people you love.
The CDC’s new COVID-19 testing guidelines could make the pandemic worse|Sara Kiley Watson|August 27, 2020|Popular-Science
Nothing formally came of it, but one of the men, the pro-democracy economist Fouad Abdelmoumni, says his friends high up at the agency told him the letter was hopeless and urged him to drop the matter.
Inside NSO, Israel’s billion-dollar spyware giant|Tate Ryan-Mosley|August 19, 2020|MIT Technology Review

Despite the result of this vote, the situation is not entirely hopeless in “Europe’s last dictatorship”.
Belarus Election: Contested Result Sparks Massive Unrest As Europe’s ‘Last Dictator’ Claims Victory|LGBTQ-Editor|August 12, 2020|No Straight News
Society itself must be changed, right out from under our hopeless cases.
No Gods, No Cops, No Masters|James Poulos|January 1, 2015|DAILY BEAST
These formations streamed from Rwanda with the same hopeless shuffle as they did from Bosnia and now as they do from Syria.
The Man Who Invented the Word ‘Genocide’|Nina Strochlic|November 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Inside, it seemed hopeless, for every chair in sight was occupied, and a dozen men were asleep on the floor.
The Stacks: H.L. Mencken on the 1904 Baltimore Fire|H.L. Mencken|October 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Anyone who takes pot shots at a lovely wading bird is a hopeless defective, in my view, an evolutionary mistake.
Can Carl Hiaasen Save Florida?|Malcolm Jones|September 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The Economist cover in 2000 dubbed it “The Hopeless Continent,” with a photo of a grinning, heavily armed soldier.
How I Got Addicted to Africa (and Wrote a Thriller About It)|Todd Moss|September 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The conflict of these certainties left hopeless disorder in every corner of his being.
The Wave|Algernon Blackwood
As the hopeless wish passed through his soul, the iron entered with it, but did not pass away.
The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 of 4|Jane Porter
His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin
The Austrian parlementaire pointed out that it was hopeless to continue the struggle as he had neither provisions nor ammunition.
Napoleon's Marshals|R. P. Dunn-Pattison
It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin

British Dictionary definitions for hopeless

hopeless

/ (ˈhəʊplɪs) /

adjective

having or offering no hope

impossible to analyse or solve

unable to learn, function, etc

informal without skill or ability

Derived forms of hopeless

hopelessly, adverbhopelessness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

hopeless

OTHER WORDS FOR hopeless

Origin of hopeless

synonym study for hopeless

OTHER WORDS FROM hopeless

Words nearby hopeless

Words related to hopeless

How to use hopeless in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for hopeless

Derived forms of hopeless