Despondent vs Diffident - What's the difference?
despondent | diffident |
In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.
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*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent , miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
(archaic): Lacking confidence in others; distrustful.
Lacking confidence in one's self; distrustful of one's own powers; not self-reliant; timid; modest; bashful; characterized by modest reserve.
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* {{quote-book
, year=1960
, author=
, title=(Jeeves in the Offing)
, section=chapter VIII
, passage=At an early point in these exchanges I had started to sidle to the door, and I now sidled through it, rather like a diffident crab on some sandy beach trying to avoid the attentions of a child with a spade.}}
As adjectives the difference between despondent and diffident
is that despondent is in low spirits from loss of hope or courage while diffident is (archaic): lacking confidence in others; distrustful.despondent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Synonyms
* despairing * disconsolate * disheartened * dejected * downcast * gloomy * miserable * sadAntonyms
* cheerful * hopefuldiffident
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Having therefore—but hold, as we are diffident of our own abilities, let us here invite a superior power to our assistance.