"pit of despair" meaning in English

See pit of despair in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pit of despair.wav Forms: pits of despair [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|pits of despair}} pit of despair (plural pits of despair)
  1. (figuratively) A feeling of utter dread and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to improve the situation. Tags: figuratively Categories (topical): Emotions Synonyms: slough of despond
    Sense id: en-pit_of_despair-en-noun--jxvG~ra Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

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      "tags": [
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          "langcode": "en",
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          "orig": "en:Emotions",
          "parents": [
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            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
        }
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1812, “Persian Tales of Inatulla of Delhi”, in Henry William Weber, transl., Tales of the East, volume 2, Edinburgh: James Ballantyne & Co, page 563:",
          "text": "He threw behind him the implements of his profession, he walked melancholy home, reflecting on the opportunity he had lost, which threw him into the pit of despair.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1852, Thomas Beames, The Rookeries of London, 2nd edition, London: Thomas Bosworth, page 263:",
          "text": "[…] many who are aware at whose cost this accursed cheapness is achieved, and into what a pit of despair these thoughtless economists are plunging the mothers of our working classes.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 July 24, Lynette Rice, “Hollywood’s Mental Health Crisis: How Job Losses Are Impacting Industry Executives As LinkedIn Is Labeled A “Pit Of Despair””, in Deadline:",
          "text": "One calls LinkedIn a “pit of despair.” Another feels an overwhelming lack of purpose. Yet another groused about simply feeling stuck. For myriad Hollywood executives who have lost their jobs over the past year, finding work has not been the only challenge they’ve have had to overcome. It’s also the feeling of hopelessness that come with being out of the game with little to no promise of ever returning.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A feeling of utter dread and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to improve the situation."
      ],
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        "(figuratively) A feeling of utter dread and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to improve the situation."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "slough of despond"
        }
      ],
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          "text": "He threw behind him the implements of his profession, he walked melancholy home, reflecting on the opportunity he had lost, which threw him into the pit of despair.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1852, Thomas Beames, The Rookeries of London, 2nd edition, London: Thomas Bosworth, page 263:",
          "text": "[…] many who are aware at whose cost this accursed cheapness is achieved, and into what a pit of despair these thoughtless economists are plunging the mothers of our working classes.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 July 24, Lynette Rice, “Hollywood’s Mental Health Crisis: How Job Losses Are Impacting Industry Executives As LinkedIn Is Labeled A “Pit Of Despair””, in Deadline:",
          "text": "One calls LinkedIn a “pit of despair.” Another feels an overwhelming lack of purpose. Yet another groused about simply feeling stuck. For myriad Hollywood executives who have lost their jobs over the past year, finding work has not been the only challenge they’ve have had to overcome. It’s also the feeling of hopelessness that come with being out of the game with little to no promise of ever returning.",
          "type": "quote"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A feeling of utter dread and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to improve the situation."
      ],
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        ],
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        "(figuratively) A feeling of utter dread and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to improve the situation."
      ],
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        {
          "word": "slough of despond"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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  "word": "pit of despair"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (eaedd02 and 8fbd9e8). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.