forlorn

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: for=lorn

CIDE DICTIONARY

forlorn, a. [OE., p. p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p. p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlora, Dan. forloren, Goth. fraliusan to lose. See For-, and Lorn, a., Lose, v. t.].

•  Deserted; abandoned; lost.  [1913 Webster]

  "Of fortune and of hope at once forlorn."  [1913 Webster]

  "Some say that ravens foster forlorn children."  [1913 Webster]
•  Destitute; helpless; in pitiful plight; wretched; miserable; almost hopeless; desperate.  [1913 Webster]

  "For here forlorn and lost I tread."  [1913 Webster]

  "The condition of the besieged in the mean time was forlorn in the extreme."  [1913 Webster]

  "She cherished the forlorn hope that he was still living."  [1913 Webster]

A forlorn hope [D. verloren hoop, prop., a lost band or troop; verloren, p. p. of verliezen to lose + hoop band; akin to E. heap. See For-, and Heap.] (Mil.), a body of men (called in F. enfants perdus, in G. verlornen posten) selected, usually from volunteers, to attempt a breach, scale the wall of a fortress, or perform other extraordinarily perilous service; also, a desperate case or enterprise.

Syn. -- Destitute, lost; abandoned; forsaken; solitary; helpless; friendless; hopeless; abject; wretched; miserable; pitiable.

forlorn, n. 

•  A lost, forsaken, or solitary person.  [1913 Webster]

  "Forced to live in Scotland a forlorn."  [1913 Webster]
•  A forlorn hope; a vanguard.  [1913 Webster]

  "Our forlorn of horse marched within a mile of the enemy."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

forlorn, adj.
1 sad and abandoned or lonely.
2 in a pitiful state; of wretched appearance.
3 desperate, hopeless, forsaken.

Idiom

forlorn hope
1 a faint remaining hope or chance.
2 a desperate enterprise.

Derivative

forlornly adv. forlornness n.

Etymology

past part. of obs. forlese f. OE forleosan (as FOR-, LOSE): forlorn hope f. Du. verloren hoop lost troop, orig. of a storming-party etc.

THESAURUS

forlorn

abandoned, affording no hope, alone, apathetic, bereft, bleak, cheerless, comfortless, cynical, defenseless, dejected, depressed, deserted, desolate, desole, despairing, desperate, despondent, desponding, disconsolate, dismal, dispirited, dolorous, down, fatherless, forgotten, forsaken, friendless, fruitless, futile, gloomy, glum, godforsaken, grim, heartsick, heartsore, helpless, homeless, hopeless, in despair, inconsolable, joyless, kithless, lonely, lonesome, lost, low-spirited, lugubrious, melancholy, miserable, motherless, mournful, neglected, oppressed, outcast, pathetic, pessimistic, pitiable, pitiful, sad, shunned, sick, sick at heart, solitary, sorrowful, soul-sick, unconsolable, unfriended, unhappy, unhopeful, vain, without hope, woebegone, woeful, wretched

ROGET THESAURUS

forlorn

Dejection

N dejection, dejectedness, depression, prosternation, lowness of spirits, depression of spirits, weight on the spirits, oppression on the spirits, damp on the spirits, low spirits, bad spirits, drooping spirits, depressed spirits, heart sinking, heaviness of heart, failure of heart, heaviness, infestivity, gloom, weariness, taedium vitae, disgust of life, mal du pays, anhedonia, melancholy, sadness, il penseroso, melancholia, dismals, blues, lachrymals, mumps, dumps, blue devils, doldrums, vapors, megrims, spleen, horrors, hypochondriasis, pessimism, la maladie sans maladie, despondency, slough of Despond, disconsolateness, hope deferred, blank despondency, voiceless woe, prostration of soul, broken heart, despair, cave of despair, cave of Trophonius demureness, gravity, solemnity, long face, grave face, hypochondriac, seek sorrow, self-tormentor, heautontimorumenos, malade imaginaire, medecin tant pis, croaker, pessimist, mope, mopus, affliction, sorry sight, memento mori, damper, wet blanket, Job's comforter, cheerless, joyless, spiritless, uncheerful, uncheery, unlively, unhappy, melancholy, dismal, somber, dark, gloomy, triste, clouded, murky, lowering, frowning, lugubrious, funereal, mournful, lamentable, dreadful, dreary, flat, dull, dull as a beetle, dull as ditchwater, depressing, melancholy as a gib cat, oppressed with melancholy, a prey to melancholy, downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, down in one's luck, heavy-hearted, in the dumps, down in the dumps, in the suds, in the sulks, in the doldrums, in doleful dumps, in bad humor, sullen, mumpish, dumpish, mopish, moping, moody, glum, sulky, out of sorts, out of humor, out of heart, out of spirits, ill at ease, low spirited, in low spirits, a cup too low, weary, discouraged, disheartened, desponding, chapfallen, chopfallen, jaw fallen, crest fallen, sad, pensive, penseroso, tristful, dolesome, doleful, woebegone, lacrymose, lachrymose, in tears, melancholic, hypped, hypochondriacal, bilious, jaundiced, atrabilious, saturnine, splenetic, lackadaisical, serious, sedate, staid, stayed, grave as a judge, grave as an undertaker, grave as a mustard pot, sober, sober as a judge, solemn, demure, grim, grim-faced, grim-visaged, rueful, wan, long-faced, disconsolate, unconsolable, inconsolable, forlorn, comfortless, desolate, desole, sick at heart, soul sick, heart sick, au desespoir, in despair, lost, overcome, broken down, borne down, bowed down, heartstricken, cut up, dashed, sunk, unnerved, unmanned, down fallen, downtrodden, broken-hearted, careworn, with a long face, with tears in one's eyes, sadly, the countenance falling, the heart failing, the heart sinking within one, a plague of sighing and grief, thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy, the sickening pang of hope deferred.

Hopelessness

N hopelessness, despair, desperation, despondency, depression, pessimism, pessimist, Job's comforter, bird of bad omen, bird of ill omen, abandonment, desolation, resignation, surrender, submission, hope deferred, dashed hopes, vain expectation, airy hopes &c, forlorn hope, gone case, dead duck, gone coon, goner, bad job, bad business, enfant perdu, gloomy horizon, black spots in the horizon, slough of Despond, cave of Despair, immedicabile vulnus, hopeless, desperate, despairing, gone, in despair, au desespoir, forlorn, desolate, inconsolable, broken hearted, unpromising, unpropitious, inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over, out of the question, not to be thought of, impracticable, past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall, at one's last gasp, given up, given over, incurable, cureless, immedicable, remediless, beyond remedy, incorrigible, irreparable, irremediable, irrecoverable, irreversible, irretrievable, irreclaimable, irredeemable, irrevocable, ruined, undone, immitigable, lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate, its days are numbered, the worst come to the worst, no change, no pause, no hope, yet I endure, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, mene mene tekel upharson.

Exclusion

N exclusion, nonadmission, omission, exception, rejection, repudiation, exile, noninclusion, preclusion, prohibition, separation, segregation, seposition, elimination, expulsion, cofferdam, excluding, exclusive, excluded, unrecounted, not included in, inadmissible, exclusive of, barring, except, with the exception of, save, bating, exclusion, seclusion, exclusion, seclusion, privacy, retirement, reclusion, recess, snugness, delitescence, rustication, rus in urbe, solitude, solitariness, isolation, loneliness, estrangement from the world, voluntary exile, aloofness, cell, hermitage, convent, sanctum sanctorum, depopulation, desertion, desolation, wilderness, howling wilderness, rotten borough, Old Sarum, exclusion, excommunication, banishment, exile, ostracism, proscription, cut, cut direct, dead cut, inhospitality, inhospitableness, dissociability, domesticity, Darby and Joan, recluse, hermit, eremite, cenobite, anchoret, anchorite, Simon Stylites, troglodyte, Timon of Athens, Santon, solitaire, ruralist, disciple of Zimmermann, closet cynic, Diogenes, outcast, Pariah, castaway, pilgarlic, wastrel, foundling, wilding, secluded, sequestered, retired, delitescent, private, bye, out of the world, out of the way, the world forgetting by the world forgot, snug, domestic, stay-at-home, unsociable, unsocial, dissocial, inhospitable, cynical, inconversable, unclubbable, sauvage, troglodytic, solitary, lonely, lonesome, isolated, single, estranged, unfrequented, uninhabitable, uninhabited, tenantless, abandoned, deserted, deserted in one's utmost need, unfriended, kithless, friendless, homeless, lorn, forlorn, desolate, unvisited, unintroduced, uninvited, unwelcome, under a cloud, left to shift for oneself, derelict, outcast, banished, noli me tangere, among them but not of them, and homeless near a thousand homes I stood, far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, makes a solitude and calls it peace, magna civitas magna solitudo, never less alone than when alone, O sacred solitude! divine retreat!.