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English
Etymology
From Middle English wanhope, equivalent to wan- + hope. Cognate with Scots wanhop, wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), West Frisian wanhope (“wanhope, despair”), Dutch wanhoop (“despair”).
Pronunciation
Noun
wanhope (usually uncountable, plural wanhopes)
- (UK dialectal or archaic) Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair.
- Late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Knight's Tale’, Canterbury Tales:
- Wel oughte I sterve in wanhope and distresse. / Farwel my lif, my lust, and my gladnesse!
1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter X, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVI:Thenne he ouertoke a man clothed in a Relygyous clothynge / […] / and sayd syre knyȝte what seke yow / Syre sayd he I seke my broder that I sawe within a whyle beten with two knyghtes / A Bors discomforte yow not / ne falle in to no wanhope / for I shall telle you tydynges suche as they ben / for truly he is dede- Then he overtook a man clothed in a Religious clothing / / and said sir knight what seek you / Sir said he I seek my brother that I saw within a while beaten with two knights / Ah Bors discomfort you not / nay fall into no wanhope / for I shall tell you tidings such as they been / for truly he is dead.
1898, Georgiana Lea Morril, editor, Speculum Gy de Warewyke: An English Poem, page 57:Wanhope: a fine English word, suggesting unhope of Langland's story of the cats and the mice, and described in Ipotis, […]
1991, Vladimir Ivir, Damir Kalogjera, editors, Languages in Contact and Contrast, →ISBN, page 411: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)
2007, Michael D. C. Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia: scholarship and critical assessment:Both despair and wanhope are generally defined as a complete loss or lack of hope and being overcome by sense of futility or defeat.
- Vain hope; overconfidence; delusion.
References