Library / English Dictionary

DEJECT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lower someone's spirits; make downhearted

Example:

The bad state of her child's health demoralizes her

Synonyms:

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

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "deject" 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 "deject"):

chill (depress or discourage)

Sentence frames:

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

Sentence example:

The bad news will deject him

Derivation:

dejection (a state of melancholy depression)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The state of feeling sad or dejected as a result of lack of companionship or being separated from others.

(Loneliness, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Sitting at the window, Beth's work often dropped into her lap, and she leaned her head upon her hand, in a dejected attitude, while her eyes rested on the dull, autumnal landscape.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found ourselves in the office.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He took to standing for long periods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped limply; and Buck found more time in which to get water for himself and in which to rest.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I am terribly dejected for about a week or two.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, “If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Eleanor's countenance was dejected, yet sedate; and its composure spoke her inured to all the gloomy objects to which they were advancing.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He said, “they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.

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

“Ah!” he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Dejected and humbled, she had even some thoughts of not going with the others to the theatre that night; but it must be confessed that they were not of long continuance, for she soon recollected, in the first place, that she was without any excuse for staying at home; and, in the second, that it was a play she wanted very much to see.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)