How to Use despairing in a Sentence

despairing

adjective
  • The despairing cries of those who lost their beloved ones brought me to tears.
    — Jiwei Xiao, The New York Review of Books, 6 Apr. 2020
  • Of course, now there will be plenty of despairing phone-ins and painful Wyscout hours.
    — Jack Pitt-Brooke, The Athletic, 14 July 2024
  • Soon, the despairing pair devise a scheme to break up their exes' happy new unions.
    — Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY, 9 Feb. 2022
  • Like someone from the young past has sent a missive to these old despairing people’s present.
    — Arthur Lubow, New York Times, 9 Mar. 2023
  • Irony doesn’t have to be nihilistic or despairing.
    — Aaron Matz, The New York Review of Books, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Rebin carries a despairing sense of hope in him, months later.
    — Cora Engelbrecht, New Yorker, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Take a break from comparing and despairing.
    — Jennifer Moss, CNBC, 10 Dec. 2025
  • As with every collapse, despairing fans will spend the next few weeks looking for someone to blame.
    — Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2023
  • For all that Mock was forced to endure, her memoir is anything but despairing.
    — Shannon Carlin, TIME, 15 July 2024
  • People on all political sides and on none are scared and despairing.
    — Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 11 Jan. 2021
  • The through line is Lynne’s voice, purring and raging, rejoicing and despairing.
    — Nancy Kruh, Peoplemag, 16 Aug. 2024
  • There’s a version of this film that would feel awkward for so much of its highs being undercut by such despairing lows.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 17 June 2021
  • For a man who succumbs to that kind of despairing metaphor, the prospect of nuclear holocaust does not seem so appalling.
    — Sasha Frere-Jones, Harper’s Magazine , 4 Nov. 2022
  • But don't overlook a despairing howl into the unfeeling night.
    — Luke Darby, GQ, 26 Oct. 2017
  • The novel’s most humorous events are also its most despairing.
    — Dan Piepenbring, The New Yorker, 16 June 2022
  • But something more despairing is at play in Gray’s conception of this story.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 28 Oct. 2022
  • There’s no shortage of things to feel negative, overwhelmed, despairing about.
    — Kristin Auble, Vogue, 31 Dec. 2024
  • The darkness is deeper and sometimes more despairing this year, but the jokes are just as frequent, and maybe even a bit more cathartic.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 11 May 2022
  • In a cynical, despairing world, a sugar pill that calls itself a sugar pill might be the sweetest thing around.
    — Tom Vanderbilt, WIRED, 19 Dec. 2023
  • But his writing about his experiences was a good deal more self-aware, funny and despairing than that claim might suggest.
    — Daniel Lewis, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Nov. 2022
  • Bleak as that may sound, the musical finds rare shards of light — and an unlikely connection — in the most despairing of places.
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 27 Jan. 2025
  • Her thoughts grew more despairing during the next few weeks in the hospital and then in the Navy’s psychiatric ward.
    — Melissa Chan, NBC News, 28 Apr. 2022
  • Still, Ohm is more despairing and miserable than any of the wretched worms Scott has acted to date.
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2026
  • Some walls still carried the scars of shrapnel, and despairing alleys were submerged in rainwater.
    — Nabil Salih, Time, 4 Dec. 2025
  • The pattern of fearful and despairing thoughts can be stopped by bringing oneself back to the feeling of caring for others.
    — Brooke Schedneck, The Conversation, 1 Apr. 2020
  • And who would want to spend their precious free time doing the disappointing and downright despairing task of trying on jeans?
    — Cai Cramer, People.com, 30 Oct. 2024
  • Both felt that harm reduction efforts had saved their own lives, and helping others was a source of hope at a time that too often could feel despairing.
    — Joanna Slater, Washington Post, 5 Aug. 2022
  • There’s a larger point to be gleaned from The Platform 2’s despairing ending.
    — A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 17 Oct. 2024
  • His shot, low and hard and uncorked with minimal back-lift of his left foot, bounced through the gap between the despairing goalkeeper and his near post.
    — Liam Twomey, New York Times, 17 June 2026
  • Perhaps Hayes did not dream this despairing phantom, but there are many moments in this book when fact fogs into fantasy.
    — Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post, 13 July 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'despairing.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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