different between crestfallen vs miserable

English

Etymology

From crest +? fallen, from the appearance of a horse with its crest (head) on its chest after defeat in a battle

Pronunciation

• (UK): IPA^(key): /?k??stf??l?n/
• (US): IPA^(key): /?k??stf?l?n/
• (cot-caught merger, Inland Northern American): IPA^(key): /?k??stf?l?n/

Adjective

crestfallen (comparative more crestfallen, superlative most crestfallen)

1. Sad because of a recent disappointment.
2. Depressed.
3. (obsolete, of a horse) Having the crest, or upper part of the neck, hanging to one side.

Quotations

• 1876 — Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, ch. XII

  Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed and crestfallen.

• 1887 — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, ch. VI

  "'...You remember the hat beside the dead man?'
  'Yes,' said Holmes; 'by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.'
  Gregson looked quite crestfallen.
  'I had no idea that you noticed that,'he said. "Have you been there?'
  'No.'"

• 1897 — H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, ch. 12

  Hall tried to convey everything by grimaces and dumb show, but Mrs. Hall was obdurate. She raised her voice. So Hall and Henfrey, rather crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to her.

• 1908 — Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, ch. 6

  'He did it awfully well,' said the crestfallen Rat.

• 1946 — Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 15

  I rushed there; no lamp! Crestfallen, I returned to my guru.

• 2010 — Pseudonymous Bosch, This Isn't What It Looks Like, ch. -3

  Yes, unfortunately, she'd heard him correctly. She was crestfallen. Here she'd come so far to ask him the question, and he didn't know the answer.

Synonyms

• (sad because of a recent disappointment): disappointed, disillusioned
• (depressed): blue, dejected, despondent, depressed, downcast, down in the dumps, sorrowful

Derived terms

• crest-fall
• crestfallenly
• crestfallenness

Translations

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?z(?)??b?l/

Adjective

miserable (comparative miserabler or more miserable, superlative miserablest or most miserable)

1. In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
2. Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.

3. Wretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.

4. (obsolete) Causing unhappiness or misery.
   • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Act III, scene i:

     For what's more miserable than discontent?

5. (obsolete) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Hooker to this entry?)

Usage notes

• Nouns to which "miserable" is often applied: life, condition, state, situation, day, time, creature, person, child, failure, place, world, season, year, week, experience, feeling, work, town, city, wage, job, case, excuse, dog.

Synonyms

• (in a state of misery): See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:lamentable
• (very bad (at)): See Thesaurus:unskilled
• (wretched): See Thesaurus:despicable or Thesaurus:insignificant
• (causing unhappiness): See Thesaurus:lamentable
• (miserly): See Thesaurus:stingy or Thesaurus:greedy

Derived terms

Related terms

• miser
• misery

Translations

Noun

miserable (plural miserables)

1. A miserable person; a wretch.
   • 1838, The Foreign Quarterly Review (volume 21, page 181)

     Dona Carmen repaired to the balcony to chat and jest with, and at, these miserables, who stopped before the door to rest in their progress. All pretended poverty while literally groaning under the weight of their riches.

   • 2003, Richard C. Trexler, Reliving Golgotha: The Passion Play of Iztapalapa (pages 46-47)

     The charge that those who played Jesus in these representations were treated badly by the plays' Jews and Romans left one commissioner cold: in his view, these miserables were beaten much less severely by the players than they were by their actual lords or curacas.

2. (informal, in the plural, with definite article) A state of misery or melancholy.
   • 1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka? (page 10)

     By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables.

Anagrams

• marbelise, marbleise

Catalan

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miser?bilis.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /mi.z???a.bl?/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /mi.ze??a.ble/

Adjective

miserable (masculine and feminine plural miserables)

1. miserable

Spanish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miser?bilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mise??able/, [mi.se??a.??le]

Adjective

miserable (plural miserables)

1. miserable
2. poor
3. greedy, stingy

Related terms

• mísero
• miseria