DEJECTION

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of melancholy depression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("dejection" is a kind of...):

depression (a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity)

Derivation:

deject (lower someone's spirits; make downhearted)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Solid excretory product evacuated from the bowels

Synonyms:

BM; dejection; faecal matter; faeces; fecal matter; feces; ordure; stool

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("dejection" is a kind of...):

body waste; excrement; excreta; excretion; excretory product (waste matter (as urine or sweat but especially feces) discharged from the body)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dejection"):

dog do; dog shit; dog turd; doggy do (fecal droppings from a dog)

crap; dirt; poop; shit; shite; turd (obscene terms for feces)

droppings; dung; muck (fecal matter of animals)

meconium (thick dark green mucoid material that is the first feces of a newborn child)

melaena; melena (abnormally dark tarry feces containing blood (usually from gastrointestinal bleeding))

Credits

Context examples:

Martin's tone and face alike showed his dejection.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His dejection was most evident.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

It would not be likely to produce that dejection of mind which frequently attended him.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The merry lilt with which he had invested the jingle was at variance with the dejection that came into his face as he finished.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Their first object was her sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute inquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her dejection had no abatement from anything passing around her; a friend or two of her father's, as always happened if he was not with them, spent the long, long evening there; and from six o'clock till half-past nine, there was little intermission of noise or grog.