Wanhope

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈwÉ’nhəʊp/

Origin

From Middle English, equivalent to - + hope. Cognate with Scots wanhop, wanhope ("wanhope, despair"), West Frisian wanhope ("wanhope, despair"), Dutch wanhoop ("despair").

Full definition of wanhope

Noun

1. (UK dialectal or archaic) Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair.
• Late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Knight's Tale’, Canterbury Tales:Wel oughte I sterve in wanhope and distresse.
  Farwel my lif, my lust, and my gladnesse!
• 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XVI:‘A, Sir Bors, discomforte you nat, nor falle nat into no wanhope, for I shall telle you tydyngis such as they be – for truly he ys dede.’
• 1898 , , Speculum Gy de Warewyke: An English Poem Chapter , Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis, …
• 1991 , , Languages in Contact and Contrast Chapter , If ... such good old English words as inwit and wanhope should be rehabilitated (and they have been pushing up their heads for thirty years), we should gain a great deal. (Collected essays, 1928, III.68)
• 2007, Michael D. C. Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia: scholarship and critical assessment:Both despair and wanhope are generally defined as a complete loss or lack of hope and being overcome by sense of futility or defeat.
2. Vain hope; delusion.