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Angst vs Despair - What's the difference?

angst | despair |

As nouns the difference between angst and despair

is that angst is emotional turmoil; painful sadness while despair is loss of hope; utter hopelessness; complete despondency.

As verbs the difference between angst and despair

is that angst is to suffer angst; to fret while despair is to give up as beyond hope or expectation; to despair of.

angst

English

Noun

(-)
  • Emotional turmoil; painful sadness.
  • * 1979 , Peter Hammill, Mirror images
    • I've begun to regret that we'd ever met / Between the dimensions. / It gets such a strain to pretend that the change / Is anything but cheap. / With your infant pique and your angst pretensions / Sometimes you act like such a creep.
  • * 2007 , Martyn Bone, Perspectives on Barry Hannah (page 3)
    • Harry's adolescence is theatrical and gaudy, and many of its key scenes have a lurid and camp quality that is appropriate to the exaggerated mood-shifting and self-dramatizing of teen angst .
  • A feeling of acute but vague anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression, especially philosophical anxiety.

    • Derived terms

    * angst bunny, angstbunny * angsty

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (informal) To suffer angst; to fret.
  • * 2001 , Joseph P Natoli, Postmodern Journeys: Film and Culture, 1996-1998
    • In the second scene, the camera switches to the father listening, angsting , dying inside, but saying nothing.
  • * 2006 , Liz Ireland, Three Bedrooms in Chelsea
    • She'd never angsted so much about her head as she had in the past twenty-four hours. Why the hell hadn't she just left it alone?

    References

    * (angst) * *

    Anagrams

    * * * * ----

    despair

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To give up as beyond hope or expectation; to despair of.
  • * Milton
    • I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted.
  • (obsolete) To cause to despair.
  • To be hopeless; to have no hope; to give up all hope or expectation.
  • * Bible, 2 Corinthians i. 8
    • We despaired even of life.

    Noun

  • Loss of hope; utter hopelessness; complete despondency.
    • He turned around in despair , aware that he was not going to survive
  • That which is despaired of.

    • Synonyms

    * desperation * despondency * hopelessness

    Anagrams

    * aspired * diapers * praised