WRETCHEDNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does wretchedness mean? 

• WRETCHEDNESS (noun)
  The noun WRETCHEDNESS has 3 senses:

1. a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune

2. the character of being uncomfortable and unpleasant

3. the quality of being poor and inferior and sorry

  Familiarity information: WRETCHEDNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WRETCHEDNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

miserableness; misery; wretchedness

Context example:

the misery and wretchedness of those slums is intolerable

Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):

ill-being (lack of prosperity or happiness or health)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wretchedness"):

concentration camp (a situation characterized by crowding and extremely harsh conditions)

living death (a state of constant misery)

suffering; woe (misery resulting from affliction)

Derivation:

wretched (deserving or inciting pity)

wretched (very unhappy; full of misery)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The character of being uncomfortable and unpleasant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

the grey wretchedness of the rain

Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):

discomfort; uncomfortableness (the state of being tense and feeling pain)

Derivation:

wretched (characterized by physical misery)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being poor and inferior and sorry

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

he has compiled a record second to none in its wretchedness

Hypernyms ("wretchedness" is a kind of...):

inferiority; low quality (an inferior quality)

Derivation:

wretched (of very poor quality or condition)

 Context examples 

“I do not think it will,” stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Dear Fanny,—You know our present wretchedness.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Their society can afford no pleasure that will atone for such wretchedness as this!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Her own feelings entirely engrossed her; her wretchedness was most acute on finding herself obliged to go directly home.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

She did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her; but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)