desperate

If you feel like this, you want or need something very badly.

• I'm desperate for some sleep.
• She was desperate to see her family.
• Are you still desperate for help with the move?

How to use it: desperate for something (They were desperate for clean drinking water.); desperate to do something (He was desperate to find a job.)

Similar words: eager, very keen

Common phrases: desperate for something, desperate to leave, desperate need

An action like this is risky but taken because there seems to be no other choice.

• It was a desperate attempt to escape.
• They took desperate measures to save the business.
• His desperate gamble failed, and the team lost.

Similar words: last-ditch

Common phrases: desperate attempt, desperate measures, desperate effort

Feeling that nothing can help you and that things will not improve.

• She felt desperate and alone.
• They became desperate after losing their home.
• He was so desperate that he begged strangers for help.

Similar words: hopeless, despairing

Opposites: hopeful

Common phrases: feel desperate, desperate people, become desperate

A situation like this is extremely bad, with little hope of improvement.

• The situation is desperate.
• Many families were living in desperate poverty.
• Conditions became desperate after the food supplies ran out.

Similar words: dire, critical, hopeless

Common phrases: desperate situation, desperate conditions, desperate poverty

So dangerous or bad that there is little hope of a good result.

• The situation is desperate.
• The hospital faced a desperate shortage of medicine.
• Flooding left the village in desperate circumstances.

Similar words: dire, hopeless, critical

Common phrases: desperate situation, desperate condition, desperate circumstances