2 meanings, 25 uses
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1 —4 uses as in:
she felt despair
Definition
hopelessness; or distress (such as extreme worry or sadness from feeling powerless to change a bad situation)
- After such exaltation, his sudden reward was radical gloom, a hangover that bordered on despair.4.5 - Hippe (34% in)
despair = hopelessness
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- She left us in agony and despair, deaf to her parents' words of comfort.3.9 - Satana Makes Shameful Suggestions (56% in)
- Was their teasing him with Gaffky numbers driving him to despair?6.1 - Changes (89% in)
- It is the end, the despair of hell itself, doomsday ....7.3 - Vingt et un (57% in)
despair = hopelessness
despair = hopelessness
despair = hopelessness
There are no more uses of "despair" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
2 —4 uses as in:
do not despair
Definition
to lose hope
- Fame and virtue lost their luster for him, he viewed nature as evil—and she is evil, stupid and evil, I agree with him there—and he despaired, horrible to say, he despaired of science and progress.4.1 - A Necessary Purchase (78% in)
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- Fame and virtue lost their luster for him, he viewed nature as evil—and she is evil, stupid and evil, I agree with him there—and he despaired, horrible to say, he despaired of science and progress.4.1 - A Necessary Purchase (78% in)
- "And what about Leopardi," Hans Castorp thought, "who explicitly despaired of science and progress?5.3 - Freedom (34% in)
- He illustrated the despairs of pi for the young man with a precise, painfully executed drawing of a circle trapped between two polygons, circumscribing one, circumscribed by the other, each with as many countless tiny sides as it was humanly possible to draw.7.6 - The Great Stupor (54% in)
There are no more uses of "despair" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —17 uses
exact meaning not specified
- "I must return to camp, to quarters, for roll call," he cries in despair at an ingenuousness that only doubles the burden his heart already feels.7.7 - Fullness of Harmony (66% in)
- You mustn't suppose they are in any despair about it.5.1 - Eternal Soup and Sudden Clarity (69% in)
- She is truly, positively very ill and has every reason to be in despair.5.3 - Freedom (32% in)
- "Illness and despair," Settembrini said, "are often only forms of depravity."5.3 - Freedom (33% in)
- Hans Castorp occasionally thought about the literary views that the man had offered on "illness and despair"—which he had found incomprehensible, or so at least he had pretended.5.4 - Mercury's Moods (20% in)
- Ah, the immoderate receptivity of youth—it can drive an educator to despair, because it is always ready to apply itself to bad ends.5.5 - Encyclopedia (44% in)
- I was, as you can well imagine, in despair over the trick my imperfect health had played on me.5.5 - Encyclopedia (62% in)
- But in his despair he merely shook his head, his face still directed toward the carpet, and replied, "I don't care, I don't care about Carducci and the republic of eloquence and human progress over time, because I love you!"5.9 - Walpurgis Night (93% in)
- They do it out of constructive despair, if you want to put it that way, in honor of the practical joke of the circle, of eternity that has no permanent direction, but in which everything keeps coming back.6.2 - Someone Else (19% in)
- 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.6.6 - Operationes Spirituales (20% in)
- Oh, no, you're solid at the core; there's no reason to despair of you.6.7 - Snow (19% in)
- A group of miners buried by a cave-in, and cut off from observing the sequence of day and night, were rescued at last and guessed the period of time they had spent in the dark, between hope and despair, at three days.7.1 - A Stroll by the Shore (35% in)
- And each time rascal luck tickled their nerves, there would be a moment of exaltation or despair, an eruption of anger or a hysterical fit of laughter, and all their outbursts were in genuine earnest and would have sounded no different had these been the ups and downs in life's fortunes.7.3 - Vingt et un (36% in)
- They took their revenge by exchanging glances—their eyes would meet and then turn heavenward in despair—and even attempted to draw Hans Castorp into the game; he, however, refused.7.4 - Mynheer Peeperkorn (Continued) (22% in)
- Herr Settembrini, who realized that all possibility of human exchange, of a democratic chat or perhaps even argument, had now been cut off, flung one hand above his head in his gesture of despair and resignation.7.5 - Mynheer Peeperkorn (Conclusion) (63% in)
- Then—and this "then" was the same high note with which he had just sung his "to see you, dear Carmen, again"—then—and now the instrumental accompaniment unleashed all its available magic to paint the little soldier's anguish and longing, his forlorn tenderness and sweet despair—then she had appeared in all her simple, fatal charm, and it had been perfectly clear to him that he was "lost" ("lost" with a great sobbing grace note preceding it), was lost for good and all.7.7 - Fullness of Harmony (73% in)
- These were hours—more than two, we admit it straight out, including a brief pause in the "labor" that now began for Holger, or actually, for virginal Miss Elly—hours of labor that went on so dreadfully long that they all were close to despairing of any result, and indeed were often tempted out of pure pity to forgo the experience and cut this short, for it truly seemed unmercifully hard work, beyond the fragile strength of her of whom it was demanded.7.8 - Highly Questionable (81% in)
There are no more uses of "despair" in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)