DISCONSOLATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does disconsolate mean? 

• DISCONSOLATE (adjective)
  The adjective DISCONSOLATE has 2 senses:

1. sad beyond comforting; incapable of being consoled

2. causing dejection

  Familiarity information: DISCONSOLATE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISCONSOLATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sad beyond comforting; incapable of being consoled

Synonyms:

disconsolate; inconsolable; unconsolable

Context example:

inconsolable when her son died

Similar:

desolate (crushed by grief)

Derivation:

disconsolateness (feeling downcast and disheartened and hopeless)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Causing dejection

Synonyms:

blue; dark; dingy; disconsolate; dismal; drab; drear; dreary; gloomy; grim; sorry

Context example:

grim rainy weather

Similar:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

 Context examples 

In one corner, near a small fire, sat an old man, leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.

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

Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

"Good-night!" said I, and vanished, like all disconsolate and broken-hearted heroes, into the darkness, with grief and rage and laughter all simmering within me like a boiling pot.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Jo leaned her chin on her knees in a disconsolate attitude and shook her fist at the reprehensible John.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Nay, friend, take it not so sadly,” said Alleyne, clapping the disconsolate one upon the shoulder.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Being in this disconsolate state, I heard, or at least thought I heard, some kind of grating noise on that side of my box where the staples were fixed; and soon after I began to fancy that the box was pulled or towed along the sea; for I now and then felt a sort of tugging, which made the waves rise near the tops of my windows, leaving me almost in the dark.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

If I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)