| / English Dictionary |
WRETCHEDNESS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of being poor and inferior and sorry
Example:
he has compiled a record second to none in its wretchedness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):
inferiority; low quality (an inferior quality)
Derivation:
wretched (of very poor quality or condition)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The character of being uncomfortable and unpleasant
Example:
the grey wretchedness of the rain
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):
discomfort; uncomfortableness (the state of being tense and feeling pain)
Derivation:
wretched (characterized by physical misery)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune
Example:
the misery and wretchedness of those slums is intolerable
Synonyms:
miserableness; misery; wretchedness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):
ill-being (lack of prosperity or happiness or health)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wretchedness"):
concentration camp (a situation characterized by crowding and extremely harsh conditions)
living death (a state of constant misery)
suffering; woe (misery resulting from affliction)
Derivation:
wretched (deserving or inciting pity)
wretched (very unhappy; full of misery)
Context examples:
I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all, I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face—he who died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink—had there, with his own hand, cut down his six accomplices.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma's thoughts all the evening.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon whose delight is in death and wretchedness?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
There was wretchedness in the idea of its being serious; there was perplexity and agitation every way.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and love her.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion—her malice—At all events it must be appeased.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
She was not deceived in her own expectation of pleasure; the comedy so well suspended her care that no one, observing her during the first four acts, would have supposed she had any wretchedness about her.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred, and how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
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