deplorable
See also: déplorable
English
Etymology
Borrowed from French déplorable, from Late Latin dēplōrābilis., from dē- + plōrō + -bilis.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /dɪˈplɔːɹəbəɫ/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (UK) (file)
Adjective
deplorable (comparative more deplorable, superlative most deplorable)
- Deserving strong condemnation; shockingly bad, wretched.
- Poor children suffer permanent damage due to deplorable living conditions and deplorable treatment by law enforcement.
- Poor children are often accused of having deplorable manners, when they are, in fact, simply responding to society in ways that mirror how society treats them.
- 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville, “The Present, and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races which Inhabit the Territory of the United States”, in Henry Reeve, transl., Democracy in America. […], volume II, London: Saunders and Otley, […], OCLC 328089906, page 413:
- I assert that the attacks directed against the Bank of the United States, originate in the same propensities which militate against the Federal Government; and that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the latter.
- To be felt sorrow for; worthy of compassion; lamentable.
- We were all saddened by the deplorable death of his son.
- 1719, Daniel Defoe, The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe
- There was a youth and his mother, and a maidservant on board, who were going passengers, and thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the evening before the hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own left, they were in a more deplorable condition than the rest.
- 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville, “The Present, and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races which Inhabit the Territory of the United States”, in Henry Reeve, transl., Democracy in America. […], volume II, London: Saunders and Otley, […], OCLC 328089906, pages 306–307:
- The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I have already alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this deplorable picture.
- 1840, Public Documents of the State of Maine, "Report Relating to the Insane Hospital", Committee on Public Buildings
- If, however, the early symptoms of insanity be neglected till the brain becomes accustomed to the irregular actions of disease, or till organic changes take place from the early violence of those actions, then the case becomes hopeless of cure. In this situation, in too many cases, the victim of this deplorable malady is cast off by his friends, thrust into a dungeon or in chains, there to remain till the shattered intellect shall exhaust all its remaining energies in perpetual raving and violence, till it sinks into hopeless and deplorable idiocy.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619, page 23:
- Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability; [...] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
Synonyms
- damnable
- lamentable
- pathetic
- scornworthy
- See also Thesaurus:lamentable
Translations
deserving strong condemnation; shockingly bad
|
lamentable, to be felt sorrow for, worthy of compassion
|
See also
- reportable
Noun
deplorable (plural deplorables)
- A person or thing that is to be deplored.
- 1970, Esquire (volume 74)
- […] heralding, this season, an end of the most awful of all apparel abominations, that most despicable of all deplorables, the ankle sock.
- 1970, Esquire (volume 74)
- (neologism, US politics, often derogatory) A Trumpist conservative, in reference to a 2016 speech by Hillary Clinton calling half of Donald Trump's supporters a "basket of deplorables".
- 2018, Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House, page 355:
- He did not say who “the guys” were—but Dowd knew he meant the Trump base, the crowds at his rallies, the Fox News watchers, the deplorables.
- 2019, Michael Wolff, Siege: Trump Under Fire, unnumbered page:
- Trump's fate, Bannon declared, rested with the deplorables, who had to be brought to the kind of fearful emotional pitch that would get them to the polls.
- 2020, Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--And Democrats from Themselves, page 265:
- The self-image of the deplorables is that of the honest, hardworkin' people of the Christian American heartland and South who have been screwed by Washington, D.C., and the coastal elites since the dawn of time.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:deplorable.
- 2018, Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House, page 355:
Further reading
- deplorable at OneLook Dictionary Search
- deplorable in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Middle French
Etymology
Late 15th century, borrowed from Latin dēplōrābilis.
Adjective
deplorable m or f (plural deplorables)
- deplorable (worthy of compassion)
Spanish
Etymology
From Late Latin dēplōrābilis, equivalent to deplorar + -able.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /deploˈɾable/ [d̪e.ploˈɾa.β̞le]
- Rhymes: -able
- Syllabification: de‧plo‧ra‧ble
Adjective
deplorable (plural deplorables)
- deplorable
Derived terms
- deplorablemente
Further reading
- “deplorable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014