| 释义 |
unˈhopeful, a.
[un-1 7.]
1. Not affording grounds for hope; unpromising.
c1450Mirour Saluacioun 2871 For both thire sonnes tholed she the vnhopfulle bitternesse. 1599Shakes. Much Ado ii. i. 392 And Benedick is not the vnhopefullest husband that I know. 1646G. Daniel Poems Wks. (Grosart) I. 73 More valewing encrease From this vnhopefull Impe, then all the Store Hee had beside. 1663Boyle Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos. ii. iii. 67 The unhopefullest season of the year, the winter solstice. 1785Jefferson Corr. Wks. 1859 I. 406 The lethargic character of their ambassador here gives a very unhopeful aspect to a treaty on this ground. 1858H. Bushnell Nat. & Supernat. vi. (1864) 183 There is nothing in it unhopeful, nothing to accuse. 1890Spectator 7 June, The chance of reading the great Minister a lesson in humility seemed not unhopeful.
2. Not feeling hope; despondent.
1850Westm. Rev. April 64 The fear which the mass, if uneducated and unhopeful, will always feel. 1858Carlyle Fredk. Gt. ii. xiv. I. 180 Jobst tried..to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful.
Hence unˈhopefulness.
[1737Bailey.] 1868H. Bushnell Mor. Uses Dark Th. (1869) 346 They become, in this way, a kind of mystery of unhopefulness. |