wanhope meaning (archaic): definition, etymology and quotations

wanhope

noun

UK /ˈwɒnhəʊp/ · US /ˈwɑnhoʊp/

Etymology From Middle English wanhope, equivalent to wan- + hope. Cognate with Scots wanhop, wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), West Frisian wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), Dutch wanhoop (“despair”).

UK, Archaic, Dialectal, Usually Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair.

Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis,[…]1898, Georgiana Lea Morril, editor, Speculum Gy de Warewyke: An English Poem, page 57:
If[…]such good old English words as inwit and wanhope should be rehabilitated (and they have been pushing up their heads for thirty years), we should gain a great deal. (Collected essays, 1928, III.68)1991, Vladimir Ivir, Damir Kalogjera, editors, Languages in Contact and Contrast, →ISBN, page 411:

1 more example

Both despair and wanhope are generally defined as a complete loss or lack of hope and being overcome by sense of futility or defeat.2007, Michael D. C. Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia: scholarship and critical assessment:

Usually Vain hope; overconfidence; delusion.