Word Finder - wretched

definition

Very miserable; feeling deep affliction or distress.

example

I felt wretched after my wife died.

definition

Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.

example

The street was full of wretched beggars dressed in rags.

definition

Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.

definition

Used to express dislike of or annoyance towards the mentioned thing.

example

Will you please stop playing that wretched trombone!

The condition of slaves at Athens was not in general a wretched one.

He returned to a wretched kingdom, torn with civil war.

It proved a wretched exchange.

Johnson was a wretched etymologist.

If we were in Vienna it would be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I beg you all to help me.

Her husband was a wretched creature.

The wretched captives were then chained and left in the court.

My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress.

Atar is inhabited by Arab and Berber tribes, and is described as a wretched spot.

Indeed, as he himself said afterwards, it was a wretched time for chemistry in Germany.

His portion is illustrated by two hundred and ninety-nine coloured plates that, wretched as they are, have been continually reproduced in various text-books - a fact possibly due to their subjects having been judiciously selected.

No means of eschewing this wretched state of decay?

Truth is, I had a pretty wretched childhood.

This wretched fiasco was hardly less satisfactory to the majority of Germans than the manner in which the national claims in Schleswig-Holstein were maintained.

The remaining history of the dynasty is a wretched story of the struggle of different claimants, while the different factors of the kingdom, the cities and barbarian races, more and more assert their independence.

Their squadron remained in reserve and Nicholas Rostov spent that day in a dull and wretched mood.

By 1086 the number of houses had decreased to too, and of these 20 were in such a wretched condition that they could not pay geld.

Wretched is the likeness of folk who deny the revelations of Allah.

In his experience, if a patient was feeling too wretched, a meeting might achieve very little.

There are several ways to avoid sporting a truly wretched look.

Many towns were founded, among which were Dresden, Leipzig and Freiburg; Chemnitz began its textile industry; and although the condition of the peasants was wretched, that of the townsmen was improving.

The conception of this work is magnificent; its execution wretched.

The writer was known, and it was in this connexion that Napoleon referred to him as "a wretched scribe named Gentz, one of those men without honour who sell themselves for money."

Lord Macaulay's description of Roxana, Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack as "utterly nauseous and wretched" must be set aside as a freak of criticism.

Like most of the papal armies of the last three centuries, Urban's troops distinguished themselves by wretched strategy, cowardice in rank and file, and a Fabian avoidance of fighting which, discreet as it may be in the field of diplomacy, has invariably failed to save Rome on the field of battle.

Both, however, greatly declined in the 18th century; and towards the beginning of the 19th, the peasants, ruined by their proprietors, 'or abandoned to the Jews, were in a more wretched condition than even their Russian neighbours.

Meantime the uttermost farthing was wrung from the wretched fellahin, while they were forced to the building of magnificent public works by unpaid labor.

In medieval times it was evidently still a strong place, but it has now sunk, in the general decay of Pamphylia, to a wretched hamlet.

Philopator (reigned 221-204), son of the preceding, was a wretched debauchee under whom the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began.

In 1741 the Swedes made an effort to recover the ceded province, but through wretched management suffered disaster, and were compelled to capitulate in August 1742, ceding by the peace of Abo, next year, the towns of Villmanstrand and Fredrikshamn.

But Mr Lang's answer on that point is that this humble supernumerary in Roux de Marsilly's conspiracy simply became one more wretched victim of the "red tape" of the old French absolute monarchy.

Erik Sjoberg, who called himself " Vitalis " (1794-1828), was another gifted poet whose career was short and wretched.

The wretched 1-losain was himself wounded in endeavouring vainly to save his infant son, only five years of age.

Then a higher God, hitherto unknown, and concealed even from the Demiurge, took pity on the wretched, condemned race of men.

It is a just remark of Thackeray's that he everywhere half-consciously recognizes her as his better angel, and dwells on her wit and her tenderness with a fondness he never exhibits for any other topic. On the 28th of January 1728, she died, and her wretched lover sat down the same night to record her virtues in language of unsurpassed simplicity, but to us who know the story more significantly for what it conceals than for what it tells.

But he spent what small energy he possessed in a wretched strife of chicanery and broken promises with Thomas of Lancaster and his party, dismissing and recalling Gaveston according to the exigencies of the moment, while he let the Scottish war shift for itself.

But he finally passed on the wretched fiction as a heritage of his descendants, to cause untold woes in the 15th century.

He made a wretched emissary, and there was no limit to his arrogance, noisiness and indiscretion.

During each of the following eleven years, the Danes, materially assisted by the universal and shameless disloyalty of the Saxon ealdormen, systematically ravaged England, and from 991 to 1014 the wretched land is said to have paid its invaders in ransoms alone L158,000.

Many authorities such as Keating and MacFirbis admit that descendants of the Firbolgs were still to be found in parts of Ireland in their own day, though they are characterized as " tattling, guileful, tale-bearing, noisy, contemptible, mean, wretched, unsteady, harsh and inhospitable."

Unable to rise, the wretched people multiplied on their potato plots with perfect recklessness.

Add to this that Louis XIII., like Richelieu himself, had wretched health, aggravated by the extravagant medicines of the day; and it is easy to understand how this pliable disposition which offered itself to the yoke caused Richelieu always to fear that his king might change his master, and to declare that the four square feet of the kings cabinet had been more difficult for him to conquer than all the battlefields of Europe.

By a twofold coup detat, parliamentary and military, he culled the fruits of the Directorys systematic aggression and unpopularity, and realized the universal desires of the rich bourgeoisie, tired of warfare; of the wretched populace; of landholders, afraid of a return to the old order of things; of royalists, who looked upon Bonaparte as a future Monk; of priests and their people, who hoped for an indulgent treatment of Catholicism; and finally of the immense majority of the French, who love to be ruled and for long had had no efficient government.

In vain the wretched astrologer protested that he was alive, got a literary friend to write a pamphlet to prove it, and published his almanac for 1709.

She lives in a wretched, filthy hovel with two grown up daughters whom she will not suffer to work or learn anything.

And therefore the apostle showeth the wretched estate of the Galatians, chap. IV.

Oh what a wonderful thing is this, that the King of all kings talketh here most familiarly with a poor wretched leper!

Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was.

Many go into a wretched downward spiral, passed from owner to owner.

In Africa, the continent's wretched stared in disbelief that a white westerner could be in worse shape than them.