(uncountable) The emotion felt when a strongly held expectation is not met.Choking back his disappointment after his own team's splendid wins against Liverpool and Aston Villa, he said: "I've got to be humble and say we were beaten by a very good side." — Today, News Group Newspapers Ltd, 1992
(countable) A circumstance in which a strongly held expectation is not met.
2012, May 5, Phil McNulty, Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool, For Liverpool, their season will now be regarded as a relative disappointment after failure to add the FA Cup to the Carling Cup and not mounting a challenge to reach the Champions League places.
As the disappointments crowded in — the economy, Rhodesia, strife within the trade-union movement — Harold Wilson tried the expedient of a semi-formal inner Cabinet, or Parliamentary Committee, as he misleadingly liked to call it. — Cabinet, Hennessy, Peter, Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1990
