Disconsolate

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(pronounced dis-kon-suh-lit)  adjective

Definition

1. incapable of being consoled; extremely unhappy; dejected; despondent. 2. (of a place or thing) causing or suggesting low spirits; cheerless; dismal or gloomy.

Main Example

• The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is now the world's worst. According to the International Rescue Committee, almost half of that nation's population lives on less than one meal a day. Not surprisingly, as a news camera pans a long line of "newly poor Afghans waiting patiently for their monthly handout," you see one disconsolate face after another.

Workplace Examples

• Brad seems to have taken the news about not getting that promotion in stride. When I met him this morning, he was his usual smiling and enthusiastic self. No outward signs of his being dejected or disconsolate.

• You're right! I am a bit disconsolate at management's decision to forgo replacing the two employees we lost last month. I don't see how in the world we can meet our goals for the year when we are two people short.

Other Examples

• while showing his nature photographs to a visitor, this author saying: "Here is my favorite, which I shot in the fall of 1979--an isolated, disconsolate tree standing in the middle of a vast, barren stretch of West Texas"; an issue of the National Geographic magazine containing bleak and disconsolate images of northern Alaska in winter when the entire landscape is dark and frozen
• as they were being led away in handcuffs after the jury's guilty verdict, the three men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery looking shaken and disconsolate; following the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, George W. Bush's narrow win in each case leaving the Democrats disconsolate
• some pictures taken in Moscow showing row after row of cheerless and disconsolate buildings--a hallmark of Soviet-era architecture
• many an athlete who had been touted as a sure bet for a gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics held in Beijing this past February returning empty-handed and disconsolate

• five days after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde this past May, President Biden traveling to Texas to grieve with disconsolate family members of those who were killed or critically injured

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