What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Desperate vs Desire - What's the difference?

desperate | desire |

As an adjective desperate

is being filled with, or in a state of despair; hopeless.

As a verb desire is

to want; to wish for earnestly.

As a noun desire is

someone or something wished for.

desperate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Being filled with, or in a state of despair; hopeless.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • Since his exile she hath despised me most, / Forsworn my company and rail'd at me, / That I am desperate of obtaining her.
  • * , chapter=16
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”}}
  • Without regard to danger or safety; reckless; furious.
  • * Macaulay
  • desperate expedients
  • Beyond hope; causing despair; extremely perilous; irretrievable.
  • Extreme, in a bad sense; outrageous.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • a desperate offendress against nature
  • * Macaulay
  • the most desperate of reprobates
  • Extremely intense.
  • Derived terms

    * desperation

    Anagrams

    * ----

    desire

    English

    Verb

    (desir)
  • To want; to wish for earnestly.
  • * Bible, Exodus xxxiv. 24
  • Neither shall any man desire thy land.
  • * Tennyson
  • Ye desire your child to live.
  • To put a request to (someone); to entreat.
  • * 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts XIII:
  • And when they founde no cause of deeth in hym, yet desired they Pilate to kyll him.
  • *
  • , title=The Mirror and the Lamp , chapter=2 citation , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired .}}
  • To want emotionally or sexually.
  • To express a wish for; to entreat; to request.
  • * Bible, 2 Kings iv. 28
  • Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord?
  • * Shakespeare
  • Desire him to go in; trouble him no more.
  • To require; to demand; to claim.
  • * Spenser
  • A doleful case desires a doleful song.
  • To miss; to regret.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • She shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies.

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (countable) Someone or something wished for.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
  • (uncountable) Strong attraction, particularly romantic or sexual.
  • (uncountable) Motivation.
  • (uncountable) The feeling of desire.
  • Synonyms

    * (one or thing wished for) wanna, want-to * (motivation) wanna, want-to

    See also

    * velleity

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * * English control verbs