All 34 Uses of

wretched

in

The Idiot

'There,' she says, 'take your earrings, you wretched old miser; although they are ten times dearer than their value to me now that I know what it must have cost Parfen to get them!†
Chpt 1.1

wretched = miserable or very bad

What must her feelings have been when she heard that Prince Muishkin, the last of his and her line, had arrived in beggar's guise, a wretched idiot, a recipient of charity—all of which details the general gave out for greater effect!†
Chpt 1.5

I thought of asking you to draw the face of a criminal, one minute before the fall of the guillotine, while the wretched man is still standing on the scaffold, preparatory to placing his neck on the block.†
Chpt 1.5

The priest, who seemed to be a wise man, had stopped talking now, and only held the cross for the wretched fellow to kiss.†
Chpt 1.5

There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and KNOWS—that's the point, he KNOWS that he is just NOW about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head.†
Chpt 1.5

what a wretched room this is—dark, and the window looking into the yard.†
Chpt 1.8

As to Gania, I need not say that he was miserable; he stood dumb and wretched and took no notice of anybody.†
Chpt 1.9

She lived in a wretched little wooden house, and had not even a servant, so poor was she.†
Chpt 1.14

And the day before the ball, Anfisa's rival snapped up the only red camellias to be had in the place, from under Platon's nose, and Platon—wretched man—was done for.†
Chpt 1.14

The wretched Platon, who had almost died since yesterday of the reproaches showered upon him, wept on my shoulder.†
Chpt 1.14

Of course you would never go with this wretched fellow, in spite of his hundred thousand roubles!†
Chpt 1.15

And you thought that I should consider your wretched seventy-five thousand, with Gania thrown in for a husband, a paradise of bliss!†
Chpt 1.16

The wretched little man wept, and groaned, and crawled towards the fire.†
Chpt 1.16

He had only seen a wretched, suffering creature, whose state of mind was gloomy and miserable, but most comprehensible.†
Chpt 2.5

There was a moment, during this long, wretched walk back from the Petersburg Side, when the prince felt an irresistible desire to go straight to Rogojin's, wait for him, embrace him with tears of shame and contrition, and tell him of his distrust, and finish with it—once for all.†
Chpt 2.5

"I am a coward, a wretched coward," he said, and moved forward again; but once more he paused.†
Chpt 2.5

The fact is it is all of a piece with these modern ideas, that wretched woman's question!†
Chpt 3.1

And side by side with them trots along some wretched fellow who has known better days, doing light porter's work from morn to night for a living, always blubbering and saying that 'his wife died because he had no money to buy medicine with,' and his children dying of cold and hunger, and his eldest daughter gone to the bad, and so on.†
Chpt 3.5

Besides the bed there were only three common chairs, and a wretched old kitchen-table standing before a small sofa.†
Chpt 3.6

The pistol was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn't carry farther than fifteen paces at the most.†
Chpt 3.7

But I see you are suffering on behalf of the criminal too, for wretched Ferdishenko, in fact!†
Chpt 3.9

She is capable of refusing the most brilliant party, and running away and starving in a garret with some wretched student; that's the sort of girl she is.†
Chpt 4.1

"Look here, my dear sir," he began, addressing Ptitsin in a very loud tone of voice; "if you have really made up your mind to sacrifice an old man—your father too or at all events father of your wife—an old man who has served his emperor—to a wretched little atheist like this, all I can say is, sir, my foot shall cease to tread your floors.†
Chpt 4.2

Know, you young greenhorn, that I was covered with honours before ever you were born; and you are nothing better than a wretched little worm, torn in two with coughing, and dying slowly of your own malice and unbelief.†
Chpt 4.2

"In a word, you are a wretched little scandal-monger," cried Gania, "and you cannot go away without a scandal!"†
Chpt 4.2

They said, in the first place, that nothing particular had happened since her departure; that the prince had been, and that Aglaya had kept him waiting a long while before she appeared—half an hour, at least; that she had then come in, and immediately asked the prince to have a game of chess; that the prince did not know the game, and Aglaya had beaten him easily; that she had been in a wonderfully merry mood, and had laughed at the prince, and chaffed him so unmercifully that one was quite sorry to see his wretched expression.†
Chpt 4.5

For whole hours at a time she ridiculed and chaffed the wretched man, and made him almost a laughing-stock.†
Chpt 4.5

A wretched vase smashed, and a man half dead with remorse about it," said Lizabetha Prokofievna, loudly.†
Chpt 4.7

Definition:

very bad

in various senses, including:

unfortunate or miserable -- as in "wretched prisoners sleeping on the cold floor"
of poor quality -- as in "wretched roads"
morally bad -- as in "The wretched woman stole his wallet."