WRETCHED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does wretched mean? 

• WRETCHED (adjective)
  The adjective WRETCHED has 5 senses:

1. of very poor quality or condition

2. characterized by physical misery

3. very unhappy; full of misery

4. morally reprehensible

5. deserving or inciting pity

  Familiarity information: WRETCHED used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WRETCHED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of very poor quality or condition

Synonyms:

deplorable; execrable; miserable; woeful; wretched

Context example:

woeful errors of judgment

Similar:

inferior (of low or inferior quality)

Derivation:

wretchedness (the quality of being poor and inferior and sorry)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Characterized by physical misery

Synonyms:

miserable; wretched

Context example:

spent a wretched night on the floor

Similar:

uncomfortable (providing or experiencing physical discomfort)

Derivation:

wretchedness (the character of being uncomfortable and unpleasant)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Very unhappy; full of misery

Synonyms:

miserable; suffering; wretched

Context example:

wretched prisoners huddled in stinking cages

Similar:

unhappy (experiencing or marked by or causing sadness or sorrow or discontent)

Derivation:

wretchedness (a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Morally reprehensible

Synonyms:

despicable; slimy; ugly; unworthy; vile; worthless; wretched

Context example:

a slimy little liar

Similar:

evil (morally bad or wrong)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Deserving or inciting pity

Synonyms:

hapless; miserable; misfortunate; pathetic; piteous; pitiable; pitiful; poor; wretched

Context example:

a wretched life

Similar:

unfortunate (not favored by fortune; marked or accompanied by or resulting in ill fortune)

Derivation:

wretchedness (a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune)

 Context examples 

"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have been quite wretched without you.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

With a few words, therefore, of no particular meaning, he walked off by himself, leaving his poor niece to sit and cry over what had passed, with very wretched feelings.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I have made a most wretched discovery, said he, after a short pause.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Livesey, said the squire, you will give up this wretched practice at once.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!” cried our wretched prisoner.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?” said she.

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

I care not who knows that I am wretched.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)