self-despair

noun

Definition of self-despairnext
as in sorrow

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for self-despair
  1. sorrow
  2. sadness
  3. dejection
  4. unhappiness
  5. melancholy
  6. oppression
  7. self-pity
  8. despair
Noun
  • Because so many of Gunn’s friends died in San Francisco, a city where Gunn had found happiness and freedom, then these elegies are also a monument to a time of communal sorrow and mourning.
    — Colm Tóibín, Literary Hub, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Another decision that those who are rejected face, at least if anger is mixed in with sorrow, is where to direct that anger.
    — George Loewenstein, Vogue, 28 Sep. 2026
Definition of sorrow
Noun
  • Beat shows how so many of the sounds that were prevalent in the mid-’90s contained a unique, end-of-the century sadness.
    — Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork, 4 Oct. 2026
  • People can experience grief, sadness, relief, conflict or combinations of these emotions after any pregnancy outcome.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 3 Oct. 2026
Definition of sadness
Noun
  • In the space of a few paragraphs, Ned will abandon and recover his child, bungle an extramarital affair, win and lose, experience ecstasy and dejection.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Miller’s hands dropped quickly to his side in frustrated dejection.
    — Kevin Acee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of dejection
Noun
  • And while there’d been some unhappiness between her and the Borden girls a few years before the murders — a disagreement over a property the family owned — there wasn’t the kind of outright resentment portrayed in the show.
    — Elisabeth Garber-Paul, Rolling Stone, 23 Sep. 2026
  • The post and later comments arrived two months before the midterm elections, where Americans’ unhappiness with persistent high inflation has been a dominant theme.
    — Kevin Breuninger, CNBC, 4 Sep. 2026
Definition of unhappiness
Noun
  • The question for me is whether or not Lloyd will also manage to capture the melancholy of a deceptively serious play, notwithstanding its reputation.
    — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 23 Sep. 2026
  • On the one hand, there’s a fascination with collective joy and the forms of vernacular invention that aspire to it; on the other, there’s an underlying melancholy that points to the inevitability of isolation, an epistemology of loneliness.
    — Pablo Larios, Artforum, 1 Sep. 2026
Definition of melancholy
Noun
  • Kosovo has criticized the verdicts as unjust, maintaining that the KLA, which Thaci had led before entering politics, fought against Serbian oppression.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 2 Oct. 2026
  • And for those elections to truly be free, ALL candidates must have the freedom to run and campaign without oppression, intimidation or persecution — starting with María Corina Machado.
    — Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of oppression
Noun
  • Naaman Zhou was in the crowd, and reports on an odd night of self-pity.
    — Ian Crouch, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2026
  • Rather than being riled into playing at a higher level, Spain sunk into self-pity mode.
    — Jordan Campbell, New York Times, 18 July 2026
Definition of self-pity
Noun
  • The tone creeps into despair as the scales fall from Sutskever’s eyes.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 2 Oct. 2026
  • The cumulative effect of the bowl’s ambient violence (robbery, assault, and overdose abound) amounts to an open-air despair not unlike Fox News-style depictions of California as a wholesale war zone.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of despair
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

self-deprecatory
self-despair
self-destruct
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Cite this Entry

“Self-despair.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/self-despair. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.

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