DISMAY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Dismay

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/dɪsmˈeɪ/ Listen

noun

Dismay n.

Loss of courage and firmness through fear; overwhelming and disabling terror; a sinking of the spirits; consternation. "I... can not think of such a battle without dismay." "Thou with a tiger spring dost leap upon thy prey, And tear his helpless breast, o'erwhelmed with wild dismay."

Condition fitted to dismay; ruin.

Synonyms: Dejection; discouragement; depression; fear; fright; terror; apprehension; alarm; affright.

verb

Dismay v. t. (past & past part. dismayed; pres. part. dismaying)

To disable with alarm or apprehensions; to depress the spirits or courage of; to deprive or firmness and energy through fear; to daunt; to appall; to terrify. "Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed." "What words be these? What fears do you dismay?"

To render lifeless; to subdue; to disquiet. (Obs.) "Do not dismay yourself for this."

Synonyms: To terrify; fright; affright; frighten; appall; daunt; dishearthen; dispirit; discourage; deject; depress. To Dismay, Daunt, Appall. Dismay denotes a state of deep and gloomy apprehension. To daunt supposes something more sudden and startling. To appall is the strongest term, implying a sense of terror which overwhelms the faculties. "So flies a herd of beeves, that hear, dismayed, The lions roaring through the midnight shade." "Jove got such heroes as my sire, whose soul No fear could daunt, nor earth nor hell control." "Now the last ruin the whole host appalls; Now Greece has trembled in her wooden walls."

Dismay v. i. To take dismay or fright; to be filled with dismay. (Obs.)

See images of 'Dismay'

Etymology of 'Dismay'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dismay" Quotes from Famous Books

... Gum tore away and tumbled over the stile in her terror, and got home again, she never knew. She supposed it to be a tramp, who had taken shelter there for the night; but finding to her dismay that the tramp stayed on, she had never overcome her fright from ...

— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... that step?" she exclaimed, breaking in upon her own words and obstinately buffeting his own as she gazed with more than necessary dismay ...

— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... however, turn for a brief space to Ireland; the present condition of which we contemplate with profound concern and anxiety, but with neither surprise nor dismay. As far as regards the Government, the state of affairs in Ireland bears at this moment unquestionable testimony to the stability and strength of the Government; and no one know this better than the gigantic impostor, to whom so much of the misery of that afflicted portion of the empire ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... dreaded visiting the flat, but because he felt it to be a duty he went immediately. And the misery and wailing and dismay he found there were worse than his anticipations. He did his best to comfort and cheer. Mrs. Moriarty alternately called upon the saints to bless him and begged to know what she would do now that they were all sure ...

— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Malcolm; but then, even as he was about to utter his thanks, his eye sought for the guardian who had ever been his mouthpiece, and, with a sudden shriek of dismay, he cried, 'My uncle! where is ...

— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

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