hopelessness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of hope

Nouns

1. hopelessness, futility, impossibility; despair, desperation; despondency, dejection; pessimism, Weltschmerz; hope deferred, dashed hopes; vain expectation, disappointment. Slang, fat chance. See uselessness.

2. forlorn hope, ghost of a chance; bad job; slough of despond, cave of despair, dark night of the soul; catch-22. Slang, dead duck.

3. pessimist, Job's comforter, bird of ill omen; cynic, killjoy; legion of the lost ones.

Verbs — lose hope, lose heart, despair, give up or over; falter; despond, throw up one's hands, give way. Informal, throw in the towel or sponge.

Adjectives

1. hopeless, desperate, despairing, despondent, in despair, forlorn, inconsolable, dejected, brokenhearted; pessimistic. Informal, bearish.

2. out of the question, not to be thought of, futile, impracticable, impossible (see impossibility); beyond hope, past mending, past recall; at the end of one's rope or tether, at one's wits' end; given up, incurable, beyond remedy, irreparable, irremediable; ruined, undone. Informal, all up.

Phrases — it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good; a drowning man will clutch at a straw.

Quotations — There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow (George Eliot), Human life begins on the far side of despair ( J. P. Sartre), The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true ( James Branch Cabell), If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train (Robert Lowell), My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Bible).

Antonyms, see hope.

II

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Utter lack of hope: despair, desperateness, desperation, despond, despondence, despondency. See HOPE.