Definition of "despondence" [de•spond•ence]

• Despondency. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Duty and desire were equally urgent to be heard; he shrunk in utter despondence from the two objects that seemed to personify both, and retreated, to the utmost of his power, from the sight of either."
• "These frequent returns of melancholy, sometimes of despondence, which is the lot of inexperienced genius, is a secret history of the heart, which has been finely conveyed to us by Petrarch, in a conversation with John of Florence, to whom the young poet often resorted when dejected, to reanimate his failing powers, to confess his faults, and to confide to him his dark and wavering resolves."
• "It also cites "despondence and grumpiness as a means to gauge waning trustworthiness" in federal employees."