DESPERATELY

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does desperately mean? 

• DESPERATELY (adverb)
  The adverb DESPERATELY has 2 senses:

1. with great urgency

2. in intense despair

  Familiarity information: DESPERATELY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESPERATELY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

With great urgency

Synonyms:

desperately; urgently

Context example:

the soil desperately needed potash

Pertainym:

desperate (showing extreme urgency or intensity especially because of great need or desire)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In intense despair

Context example:

the child clung desperately to her mother

Pertainym:

desperate (arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope)

 Context examples 

She glanced desperately around the cabin and at the bed unrolled on the other bunk.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I tried to throw her off, but she clung to me most desperately.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I hoped, desperately, that he might commit some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke me; for in such way only I knew I could be stirred to shoot.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his much-tried emotions.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

This full moon could find you run down and desperately in need of rest.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Dr Susan Kohlhaas, Director of Research at the MS Society, said: MS is relentless, painful, and disabling, and treatments that can slow and prevent the accumulation of disability over time are desperately needed.

(Cambridge scientists reverse ageing process in rat brain stem cells, University of Cambridge)

He is desperately ill. That is why I have come.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They sat in silence for a long time, she thinking desperately and he pondering upon his love which had departed.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“They are as well, ma'am,” he desperately observed after a pause, “as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling desperately, but unable to win back.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)