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| Main Entry: |
desperate
 [des-per-it, -prit] 
|
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | reckless, outrageous |
| Synonyms: | atrocious, audacious, bold, careless, dangerous, daring, death-defying, determined, devil-may-care, foolhardy, frantic, frenzied, furious, hasty, hazardous, headlong, headstrong, heinous, impetuous, incautious, madcap, monstrous, precipitate, rash, risky, scandalous, shocking, venturesome, violent, wild |
| Antonyms: | confident, content, satisfied, secure, unworried |
| Main Entry: | desperate |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | hopeless |
| Synonyms: | at end of one's rope, back to the wall, can't win, dead duck, despairing, despondent, desponding, downcast, forlorn, futile, gone*, goner, hard up, in the soup, in the toilet, inconsolable, irrecoverable, irremediable, irretrievable, no-chance, no-way, no-win, running out of time, sad, sunk, up against it, up the creek, useless, vain, wretched |
| Antonyms: | hopeful |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | acute |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | very important |
| Synonyms: | afflictive, critical, crucial, dangerous, decisive, desperate, dire, essential, grave, serious, severe, sudden, urgent, vital |
| Notes: | acute is used for a sudden onset and short duration; chronic is for conditions that are slow to develop and of long duration acute is an angle of less than 90 degrees; obtuse is one of more than 90 degrees chronic is contrasted with acute as chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute pain and is resistant to most medical treatments |
| Antonyms: | not serious, unimportant |
Example Sentences
- Pythons are invading the Everglades, and scientists are desperate to stop them from devastating the native animal population.
- It's a beautiful image of a desperate and abandoned man.
- It was the beginning of a desperate, round-the-clock attempt to save her life.
| Main Entry: | almighty |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | severe |
| Synonyms: | awful, desperate, enormous, excessive, extreme, great, intense, loud, terrible |
| Antonyms: | weak |
| Main Entry: | atrocious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | outrageous; widely condemned |
| Synonyms: | awful, bad, barbaric, beastly, desperate, diabolical, fiendish, flagrant, godawful, grody, gross*, hairy*, heinous, lousy, monstrous, nefarious, rotten, scandalous, shocking, villainous, wicked |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | climactic/climacteric |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | decisive |
| Synonyms: | acute, climactical, critical, crucial, desperate, dire, paramount, peak |
| Antonyms: | anticlimacteric, anticlimactic, bathetic, indecisive, trivial, undecided |
| Main Entry: | concentrated |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | intense |
| Synonyms: | all-out, deep, desperate, exquisite, fierce, furious, hard, intensive, terrible, vehement, vicious |
| Antonyms: | diffuse, diluted, free, loose |
| Main Entry: | critical |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | urgently important |
| Synonyms: | acute, all-important, climacteric, conclusive, consequential, crucial, dangerous, deciding, decisive, desperate, determinative, dire, exceptive, grave, hairy*, hazardous, high-priority, integral, momentous, perilous, pivotal, precarious, pressing, risky, serious, significant, strategic, urgent, vital, weighty |
| Antonyms: | trivial, uncritical, unimportant |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | crucial |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | critical, important |
| Synonyms: | acute, central, clamorous, climacteric, climatic, compelling, deciding, decisive, desperate, dire, essential, hanging by thread, high-priority, imperative, insistent, momentous, necessary, on thin ice, pivotal, pressing, searching, showdown, touch and go, touchy, urgent, vital |
| Antonyms: | inessential, trivial, uncritical, unimportant |
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2012 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2012 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.
