despair
\dɪˈspɛə\
The verdict
“despair” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Désespérer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-despair · despair · French
despair · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | despair |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \dɪˈspɛə\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « despair » en français
Rare enough to double-check
despair is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \dɪˈspɛə\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
despair has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is despair, spelled D-E-S-P-A-I-R.
Definition
- 1Désespérer.
- 2Désespérer, causer le désespoir.
- 3Se désespérer.
- 4Se désespérer de.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how despair appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted.
Don't despair. I'm sure that help will come.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.