DESPONDENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does despondence mean? 

• DESPONDENCE (noun)
  The noun DESPONDENCE has 1 sense:

1. feeling downcast and disheartened and hopeless

  Familiarity information: DESPONDENCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESPONDENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feeling downcast and disheartened and hopeless

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

despondence; despondency; disconsolateness; heartsickness

Hypernyms ("despondence" is a kind of...):

depression (sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

Derivation:

despond (lose confidence or hope; become dejected)

despondent (without or almost without hope)

 Context examples 

As she walked along, seemingly incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose countenance expressed a deeper despondence.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Winthrop, however, or its environs—for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home—was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

For Fanny's present comfort it was concluded, perhaps, at the happiest moment: had he been able to talk another five minutes, there is no saying that he might not have talked away all Miss Crawford's faults and his own despondence.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her fears, he had no courage, no confidence to attempt the removal of:—he listened to them in silent despondence;—but her difficulties were instantly obviated, for with a readiness that seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind, he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Her elder cousins mortified her by reflections on her size, and abashed her by noticing her shyness: Miss Lee wondered at her ignorance, and the maid-servants sneered at her clothes; and when to these sorrows was added the idea of the brothers and sisters among whom she had always been important as playfellow, instructress, and nurse, the despondence that sunk her little heart was severe.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity of children, and such a want of almost everything else, as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)