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despair
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

despair as in:  she felt despair

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  • •
    She rescued me from despair.
    despair = hopelessness or distress
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    I was in deep despair when she introduced me to a better way to live.
    despair = hopelessness
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    She was in a state of constant despair for the last year of her life.
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
  • •
    For a moment he froze, consumed with despair.  (source)
    despair = a feeling of hopelessness
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    Steam was billowing from under the crumpled hood; Hedwig was shrieking in terror; a golf-ball-size lump was throbbing on Harry's head where he had hit the windshield; and to his right, Ron let out a low, despairing groan.  (source)
    despairing = distressed
  • •
    In despair, Curly headed for the portable latrines.  (source)
    despair = a feeling of hopelessness or distress
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    (Fanfare, shorter but nearer) NORFOLK (Despairing) Oh, my God.  (source)
    Despairing = with distress or without hope
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    She attempted to find the middle ground between silence and despair.  (source)
    despair = distress
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    I thought I heard the sighs of a wild, despairing woman.†  (source)
    despairing = without hope
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    She fell to her knees and sank into a dark hole of despair and disbelief.  (source)
    despair = feeling of hopelessness or distress
  • •
    And then horns were honking, their ah-000gahs sounding like despairing geese.†  (source)
    despairing = without hope
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    My heart beat in alternating hope and despair: it will work, it will not.  (source)
    despair = hopelessness
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    Hit the squirrel over the head with a shovel?" said Flora's father in a squeaky, despairing voice.†  (source)
    despairing = without hope
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despair as in:  do not despair

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Don't despair. Next year will be better.
despair = lose hope
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    Don't despair--help is on the way!
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    I never despaired and eventually I found a good job.
    despaired = lost hope
  • •
    She despaired that anyone would believe her.
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
  • •
    Once, tired of writing and rewriting until Peter was satisfied, Val despaired and said, "Write it yourself, then!"  (source)
    despaired = had a feeling of hopeless ness or distress
  • •
    But as a reader, I did not despair.  (source)
    despair = give up hope
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    Enrique despairs.†  (source)
    despairs = loses hope
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    Nine hours after that bus rolled over, as all those stretchers were being carried up the hill, and everyone despairing—there was her hand coming up out of the window and everyone was shouting because there it was, a moving hand.  (source)
    despairing = losing hope
  • •
    I despair'd To see you more, whom yet with happy vows 430 I now can hail again.†  (source)
    despair'd = lost hope
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    I would have despaired of the hopelessness and confusion.  (source)
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    My child, do not despair.  (source)
    despair = give up hope
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    But without academic credentials, he despairs of ever getting published in a scholarly journal.†  (source)
    despairs = loses hope
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    The stable hands, despairing of getting help to the track fast enough, fetched the only transportation on hand, a little runabout truck that the track starter used to motor around the course.  (source)
    despairing = losing hope
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    But varying far their hopes and fears: the Greeks Of safety and escape from death despair'd; While high the hopes in ev'ry Trojan's breast, To burn the ships, and slay the warlike Greeks; So minded each, oppos'd in arms they stood.†  (source)
    despair'd = lost hope
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despair as in:  she was the despair of the team

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Conditions that would have been the despair of most people, only served to motivate her.
despair = thing that causes hopelessness
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    Her schizophrenia and refusal to take medication is the despair of her parents.
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    These "new styles" were the despair of our young nieces, who were always trying to get us into brighter colors, shorter skirts, and lower necklines.  (source)
    despair = something that causes hopelessness or distress
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    It was the despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf's life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged.  (source)
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Show 7 more with 3 word variations
  • •
    If she had been six she would have been the despair of her parents.  (source)
    despair = something that causes hopelessness or distress
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    When he had gone half way he turned around and stared at the scene — his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of "Town Tattle." over the tapestry scenes of Versailles.  (source)
    despairing = causing distress and loss of hope
  • •
    It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs.  (source)
    despairs = things that cause hopelessness
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    The Church of England, that finest flower of our Island genius for compromise; that system, peculiar to these shores, the despair of foreign observers, which deflects the torrents of religious passion down the canals of moderation.  (source)
    despair = something that causes hopelessness or great distress
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    The answers to these prayers seemed often to come in the middle of the night: many mornings I would climb onto my stool to find the watch that we had left in a hundred despairing pieces fitted together and ticking merrily.  (source)
    despairing = causing hopelessness or great distress
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    After supper, urged perhaps by the impish humour which was the despair of his friends in Cambridge, Mass., he often asked Philip and Hayward to come in for a chat.  (source)
    despair = something that causes hopelessness or distress
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    He was the despair—and the great hope—of his father confessor, whose life he daily made a hell with raging dialectics and a total lack of simplicity.  (source)
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