wretched
Americanadjective
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very unfortunate in condition or circumstances; miserable; pitiable.
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characterized by or attended with misery and sorrow.
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despicable, contemptible, or mean.
a wretched miser.
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poor, sorry, or pitiful; worthless.
a wretched job of sewing.
adjective
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in poor or pitiful circumstances
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characterized by or causing misery
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despicable; base
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poor, inferior, or paltry
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(prenominal) (intensifier qualifying something undesirable)
a wretched nuisance
Synonym Usage
Wretched, miserable, sorry refer to that which is unhappy, afflicted, or distressed. Wretched refers to a condition of extreme affliction or distress, especially as outwardly apparent: wretched hovels. Miserable refers more to the inward feeling of unhappiness or distress: a miserable life. Sorry applies to distressed, often poverty-stricken outward circumstances; but it has connotations of unworthiness, incongruousness, or the like, so that the beholder feels more contempt than pity: in a sorry plight.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of wretched
First recorded in 1150–1200, wretched is from the Middle English word wrecchede. See wretch, -ed 3
Explanation
The fairy tale Cinderella gives us many examples of uses for the word wretched. Poor Cinderella had a wretched childhood, living in wretched conditions with a wretched stepmother. It would be enough to make anyone feel wretched, or absolutely terrible. Wretched is an all-around unhappy word. If you're very ill, heartbroken, or riddled with guilt, you may feel wretched. This word is also used to describe awful living conditions. If your cabin at sleep-away camp is freezing cold and rat-infested, you could describe it as wretched. And if you truly don't like someone, you might call that person wretched — though maybe not to his or her face.
Vocabulary lists containing wretched
"Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare, Act I
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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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:
In that case, you will likely find yourself traveling to or from the concourse on a wretched holdover of mid-century transportation design: the people mover.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Hopefully the generation of Gen Z musicians depicted in the film still lust over the chance to try, even as a wretched economy makes road-dogging harder today while digital fame beckons instead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The triumph arrived eight months after India lifted their maiden senior Women's ODI World Cup in Navi Mumbai and a fortnight after a wretched T20 World Cup campaign ended in a group-stage exit at Lord's.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Still, Ohm is more despairing and miserable than any of the wretched worms Scott has acted to date.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026
It just made life more wretched for everyone, particularly for the refugees in the streets.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
Yes, so they have; though not many wretcheder things.
From The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy
No roads were wretcheder than theirs; nobody cared less than they.
From The Henchman by Mark Lee Luther
Ah the poor Lover!—In the changing Hands Of Day and Night no wretcheder than He!
From Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and Salámán and Absál Together With A Life Of Edward Fitzgerald And An Essay On Persian Poetry By Ralph Waldo Emerson by Edward FitzGerald
The wretcheder are the contemners of all helps; such as presuming on their own naturals, deride diligence, and mock at terms when they understand not things.
From A Grammar of the English Tongue by Samuel Johnson
Let us hope not until social order has been transformed, lest they should only give more to those who have, and leave the wretched still wretcheder by force of contrast.
From Annie Besant An Autobiography by Annie Wood Besant
In the wretchedest slum quarter of Partinico. a pinched little town near Palermo, a man lay starving last week.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week, on the 19th anniversary of that historic Dempsey-Carpentier battle, Jersey City was the scene of another heavyweight prize fight that will probably go down in history as the wretchedest of the post-Dempsey era.
From Time Magazine Archive
I saw the Husband not long since; one of the wretchedest Phantasms, it seemed to me, I had yet fallen in with,—many, many, as they are here.
From The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I by Thomas Carlyle
Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages but will help to regulate the actual practical weddings and households of those foolish girls.
From Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle
It depends on Miss Haldane to make me the happiest or the wretchedest man living.'
From The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
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.
