respair means fresh hope; recovery from despair. It carries an Arena rating of 1810, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, respair ranks #552 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #575 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #1,266 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,491 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
Why “respair” is a great word
Fresh hope, or the recovery from despair. Formed within English from the prefix *re-*, meaning ‘again’, and the noun *despair*, modeled after its antonym. Unlike “hope,” a general and abiding expectation, or “resurgence,” a broad return to prominence, respair is the singular, fragile return of light after a long and certain dark. It is the first tentative crocus breaking through frost-hardened ground, the unexpected warmth of a spring sun on winter-acclimated skin, the quiet intake of breath after a night spent weeping—hope not born, but painfully, miraculously reborn.
noun
- Fresh hope; recovery from despair.e.g.“Springing from his seat on a fallen tree, where he had sunk in his respair, he cried in genuine gladness:” — 1907, Roy Rockwood, “Put to the Test”, in Jack North's Treasure Hunt, Or, Daring Adventures in South America, Chatterton-Peck Company, page 105:
verb
- To recover from despair.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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