different between despondent vs unhappy

English

Etymology

From Latin despondere (“to give up, to abandon”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??sp?nd?nt/

Adjective

despondent (comparative more despondent, superlative most despondent)

1. In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sad

   • 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.

Derived terms

• despondency

Synonyms

• crestfallen
• despairing
• disconsolate
• disheartened
• dejected
• downcast
• gloomy
• heartsick
• hopeless
• miserable
• sad

Antonyms

• cheerful
• hopeful

Translations

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /de?s?pon.dent/, [d?e?s??p?n?d??n?t?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /des?pon.dent/, [d??s?p?n?d??n?t?]

Verb

d?spondent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of d?sponde?

English

Etymology

un- +? happy

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?hæpi/
• Rhymes: -æpi

Adjective

unhappy (comparative unhappier or more unhappy, superlative unhappiest or most unhappy)

1. Not happy; sad.
   • 1728, John Gay, The Beggar's Opera

     A moment of time may make us unhappy forever.

2. Not satisfied; unsatisfied.

   An unhappy customer is unlikely to return to your shop.

3. (chiefly dated) Not lucky; unlucky.

   The doomed lovers must have been born under an unhappy star.
4. (chiefly dated) Not suitable; unsuitable.
   • 1563, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments

     The people, if they are not strangely bent
     Against our welfare, never will consent
     To this unhappy match, foreboding ill:
     What's it to us, if th' adverse nation will?

Synonyms

• (not happy): See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:lamentable

Antonyms

• happy
• glad
• delighted
• exuberant
• joyous
• joyful

Translations

Noun

unhappy (plural unhappies)

1. An individual who is not happy.
   • 1972, The New Yorker (volume 48, part 1, page 109)

     Leduc, as is true of many other unhappies, is largely a confessional writer: her subject is herself, and her gift is a driving, vivacious power that turns her incurable, inveterate unhappiness into a series of dramas […]

Middle English

Noun

unhappy

1. unhap