DESPAIRING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does despairing mean? 

• DESPAIRING (adjective)
  The adjective DESPAIRING has 1 sense:

1. arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope

  Familiarity information: DESPAIRING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESPAIRING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope

Synonyms:

despairing; desperate

Context example:

her desperate screams

Similar:

hopeless (without hope because there seems to be no possibility of comfort or success)

 Context examples 

She listened for an instant, threw up her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and as noiselessly as she had come.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Only a week, sir?” he cried, in a despairing voice. “A fortnight—say at least a fortnight!”

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus of screams in the distance, and knew that the Martinez had gone down.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:—They were made by Miss Lucy!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I thought of the despairing yell of the tortured iguanodon—that dreadful cry which had echoed through the woods.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Oh!— he threw up his hands with a despairing gesture—it is impossible!

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

My uncle looked round with despairing eyes.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This idea plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful that even now, when the scene is on the point of closing before me for ever, I shudder to reflect on it.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

"Didn't you know water would be the end of me?" asked the Witch, in a wailing, despairing voice.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

I remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite despairing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)