deject v : lower someone's spirits; make downhearted; "These news depressed her"; "The bad state of her child's health demoralizes her" [syn: depress, cast down, get down, dismay, dispirit, demoralize, demoralise] [ant: elate]

English

Etymology

Latin deicere 'to throw down'.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛkt

Verb

1. Make sad or dispirited.

   "I pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation. She was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company" -Benjamin Franklin

Quotations

• 1927 Harold Victor Routh: God, Man, & Epic Poetry: A Study in Comparative Literature http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC03459385&id=fx8LAAAAMAAJ&q=dejects&dq=dejects&pgis=1 (page 215)

  Vergil succeeds in filling Hades with all that depresses and dejects in his world, so that Aeneas encounters the causes of Augustan pessimism.

• 1933 Arthur Melville Jordan: Educational Psychology (page 60) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00764755&id=U6cQm3IcVHcC&q=%22there+is+nothing+which+dejects+school+children+quite+so+%22&dq=%22there+is+nothing+which+dejects+school+children+quite+so+%22&pgis=1

  On the other hand, there is nothing which dejects school children quite so much as failure.

Derived terms

• dejected
• dejection

beat down, cast down, chill, damp, dampen, dampen the spirits, darken, dash, demoralize, depress, discourage, dishearten, disparage, dispirit, knock down, lower, lower the spirits, oppress, press down, sadden, sink, weigh heavy upon, weigh upon