The complete collapse of hope.
The complete collapse of hope — not just deep sadness but the settled conviction that nothing can get better.
Defined by the total loss of hope: where sadness, sorrow, grief, and heartbreak answer to loss, and gloom, dejection, and despondency are sunken spirits, despair specifically cancels the future. More absolute and final than despondency — “Despair means a total loss of hope; despondency does not” (Century Dictionary). It need not spring from bereavement; it fastens onto any situation seen as past remedy. Note the contrast with desperation, an active, furious struggle, whereas despair “destroys courage and stops all effort.”
The utter loss of hope; the conviction that nothing can improve.
Stronger and more final than despondency.
In Catholic moral theology, the voluntary abandonment of all hope of salvation — treated as a mortal sin.
It contravenes God's mercy, and is distinguished from mere anxiety or low spirits.
Verb mid-14c., from Latin desperare “to lose all hope,” from de- “without” + sperare “to hope” (from spes “hope”). Noun c. 1300 “hopelessness.” The native word it displaced was wanhope.
The core meaning (“loss of hope”) has been stable since c. 1300. A distinct theological sense — the sin of despair (abandoning hope of salvation) — developed in Catholic moral theology. A weakened colloquial sense (“great unhappiness,” “much to the despair of the fans”) coexists with the strong one. No reliable recent-generation shift.