Hopeless

Podcast 1 · Introduction

Hopeless

A documentary-style narration: origin, meaning, and feel.

Part of speech

adjective

Pronunciation

HOHP-less  /ˈhəʊpləs/

Definition

Feeling or inspiring no hope; having no chance of improvement or success; beyond optimism or solution; (informal) very bad at something, incompetent.

Plain meaning

Hopeless means having no hope — either describing a situation with no chance of improvement (a hopeless case, a hopeless situation) or a person who has lost all hope. Informally, calling someone hopeless means they are very bad at something: he's hopeless at cooking.

Register

Neutral to negative. Hopeless in its primary sense is strongly negative — describing a loss of hope or an irrecoverable situation. In its informal sense (hopeless at cooking) it is mildly derogatory and often affectionate. The clinical concept of learned helplessness uses hopelessness as a technical term in psychology.