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Indifferent vs Desperate - What's the difference?

indifferent | desperate |

As a verb indifferent

is .

As an adjective desperate is

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

indifferent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not caring or concerned; uninterested, apathetic.
    • He was indifferent to the proposal, since it didn't affect him, either way.
  • Mediocre, usually used negatively in modern usage.
    • The long distance and the indifferent roads made the journey impossible.
    The performance of Blue Jays has been '''indifferent'' this season.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • The staterooms are in indifferent order.
  • Having no preference or bias, being impartial.
    • ''I am indifferent between the two plans.
  • * Addison
    • indifferent in his choice to sleep or die
  • Not making a difference; without significance or importance.
    • Even if one appliance consumes an indifferent amount of energy when left on stand-by overnight, together they can represent 10% of the electricity demand of a household.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Dangers are to me indifferent .
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • Everything in the world is indifferent but sin.
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
    • His slightest and most indifferent acts were odious in the clergyman's sight.
  • (mechanics) Being in the state of neutral equilibrium.

    • Quotations

    * , act 4, scene 1: *: Let their heads be sleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their garters of an indifferent knit

    Adverb

  • (obsolete) To some extent, in some degree (intermediate between very'' and ''not at all ); moderately, tolerably, fairly.
    • The face of the Moon appearing to me to be full of indifferent high mountains...

    Usage notes

    * Now obsolete, but very common c. 1600-1730.

    References

    * ----

    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

    Related terms

    * despair * desperado

    Anagrams

    * ----