Despair

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Related to despairing: despairingly, depressing

Despair

See also Futility.

Detection, Crime (See SLEUTHING.)

Destiny (See FATE.)

Achitophel

hanged himself from despair when his advice went unheeded. [O.T.: II Samuel 17:23]

Aram, Eugene

scholar murders from pressure of poverty. [Br. Lit.: Eugene Aram]

Bowery, the

Manhattan skid row for alcoholics. [Am. Hist.: Hart, 97]

Giant Despair

imprisons Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle. [Br. Lit.: Pilgrim’s Progress]

Hrothgar

Danish king desperately distressed by warrior-killing monster. [Br. Lit.: Beowulf]

Maurya

mother loses six sons in the sea. [Br. Lit.: Riders to the Sea]

Melusina

fairy who despaired when husband discovered secret. [Fr. Folklore: Brewer Handbook, 695]

Narcissus

wastes away yearning to kiss reflection of himself. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 745; Rom. Lit.: Metamorphoses]

Slough of Despond

bog enmiring and discouraging Christian. [Br. Lit.: Pilgrim’s Progress]

Sullivan brothers

mother despairs over losing her five sons in WWII (1942). [Am. Hist.: Facts (1943), 106]

Tristram

or Tristan falsely told that Iseult is not coming to save him from fatal poisoning, he dies of despair. [Medieval Legend: Brewer Dictionary]

Waiting for Godot

tramps consider hanging themselves because Godot has failed to arrive to set things straight. [Anglo-French Drama: Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot in Magill III, 1113]

References in periodicals archive ?

A second, albeit related, tactic for choosing to wallow in sin rather than embrace forgiveness is exposed and indicted by Anti-Climacus under the rubric of "the sin of despairing of the forgiveness of sins (offense).

Kierkegaard as physician of the soul: on self-forgiveness and despair

the wan face in profile against the pillow, the despairing mother at the bedside, the muted light, the tousled hair, the useless glass of water" (1).

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Self-Portrait After the Spanish Flu (1919-20). (About the Cover)

Of gaiety and companionship to those with companions and of despairing loneliness, all too often, for those without.