different between disconsolate vs drear

English

Etymology

From Medieval Latin disc?ns?l?tus (“comfortless”), from dis- (“away”) +? c?ns?l?tus (“consoled”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /d?s?k?ns?l?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d?s?k?ns?l?t/

Adjective

disconsolate (comparative more disconsolate, superlative most disconsolate)

1. Cheerless, dreary.

   Synonyms: bleak, dreary, downcast; see also Thesaurus:cheerless

   • 2013, Daniel Taylor, Jack Wilshere scores twice to ease Arsenal to victory over Marseille (in The Guardian, 26 November 2013)[1]

     Özil looked a little disconsolate when he was substituted late on, though he did set up Wilshere's second with a lovely pass off the outside of his left boot.

   • 1897, W.S.Maugham, Liza of Lambeth, chapter 1.

     Worst off of all were the very young children, for there had been no rain for weeks, and the street was as dry and clean as a covered court, and, in the lack of mud to wallow in, they sat about the road, disconsolate as poets.

   • 1885, Robert L. Steveson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, chapter 7.

     Sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

2. Seemingly beyond consolation; inconsolable.
   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, The Pleasantness of Religion (sermon)

     overwhelmed with disconsolate sorrow

   Synonyms: dejected, inconsolable, unconsolable

   Antonym: consolable

Derived terms

• disconsolately
• disconsolation
• disconsolateness

Translations

Noun

disconsolate

1. (obsolete) Disconsolateness.

Anagrams

• consolidates

Latin

Adjective

disc?ns?l?te

1. vocative masculine singular of disc?ns?l?tus

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d???/

Etymology 1

Shortening of dreary.

Adjective

drear (comparative drearer, superlative drearest)

1. (poetic) Dreary.
   • 1794, William Blake, Earth's Answer, lines 1-2

     Earth raised up her head
     From the darkness dread and drear,

   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night

     I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs
     Of desolation I had seen and heard
     In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:

   • 1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, XXVIII, lines 1-2

     Now dreary dawns the eastern light,
     And fall of eve is drear, [...]

Etymology 2

Back-formation from dreary.

Noun

drear (plural drears)

1. (obsolete) Gloom; sadness.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.2:

     She thankt him deare / Both for that newes he did to her impart, / And for the courteous care which he did beare / Both to her love and to her selfe in that sad dreare.

Anagrams

• Rader, arder, arred, darer, rared, rear'd, reard