DISPIRIT

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dispirit mean? 

• DISPIRIT (verb)
  The verb DISPIRIT has 1 sense:

1. lower someone's spirits; make downhearted

  Familiarity information: DISPIRIT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISPIRIT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they dispirit    ... he / she / it dispirits   
Past simple: dispirited   
Past participle: dispirited   
-ing form: dispiriting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lower someone's spirits; make downhearted

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

cast down; deject; demoralise; demoralize; depress; dismay; dispirit; get down

Context example:

The bad state of her child's health demoralizes her

Hypernyms (to "dispirit" is one way to...):

discourage (deprive of courage or hope; take away hope from; cause to feel discouraged)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dispirit"):

chill (depress or discourage)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will dispirit him

 Context examples 

And it was such dispiriting effort.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Her mind was so much weakened that she still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only dispirited her more.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Being quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and dispair, I lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might there end my days.

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

She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be, and must be.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

They were so tired and worn out and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I was not dispirited now.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up—though, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Well, they can eat beef and bread and butter, if they are hungry, only it's mortifying to have to spend your whole morning for nothing, thought Jo, as she rang the bell half an hour later than usual, and stood, hot, tired, and dispirited, surveying the feast spread before Laurie, accustomed to all sorts of elegance, and Miss Crocker, whose tattling tongue would report them far and wide.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But then, strange to say, when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to leave me helpless and dispirited.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They were engaged about the end of that time to attend Lady Middleton to a party, from which Mrs. Jennings was kept away by the indisposition of her youngest daughter; and for this party, Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or staid, prepared, without one look of hope or one expression of pleasure.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)