Meaning & use
desperately
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Meanings
adverbnot comparable
In a way that shows a great and urgent need, often because other options seem to be gone.
Grammar: Goes with verbs of wanting or trying: desperately need, desperately try.
Patterns
- desperately need something
- desperately try to do something
- desperately want something
The villagers desperately needed clean water after the flood.
She searched desperately for her passport before the flight.
He was desperately trying to reach his brother by phone.
adverbnot comparable
To an extreme and worrying degree, used to intensify a negative or strong feeling.
Grammar: Intensifies adjectives such as ill, unhappy and short: desperately sad.
Patterns
- desperately ill
- desperately sorry
- desperately in love
The patient was desperately ill and needed an operation at once.
She was desperately unhappy in her new job.
I'm desperately sorry for the delay.
Common combinations
- desperately need
- The shelter desperately needs blankets this winter.
- desperately seek
- Families are desperately seeking safe housing.
- desperately want
- He desperately wanted to win the scholarship.
- desperately in love
- They were desperately in love and ignored all warnings.
- cling desperately
- She clung desperately to the rope as the boat tilted.
Synonyms and how they differ
- urgently
- Urgently stresses how quickly something is needed, while desperately adds emotion and a sense of last resort.
- frantically
- Frantically describes wild, panicked activity, whereas desperately focuses on need and hope running out.
- badly
- Badly is a plainer, more common intensifier, as in badly needed, and is less dramatic.
Opposites
Word family
- desperate adjective
- Having a great need or a lack of other options.
- desperation noun
- The feeling of having no hope or choice.
- despair noun
- Complete loss of hope.
- despairing adjective
- Showing loss of hope.
Commonly confused: desperately or desperate?
desperately vs desperate
Desperate is the adjective (a desperate plea). Desperately is the adverb and modifies verbs or adjectives.
Practice
Which sentence uses desperately in the correct place?
Choose one answer.
Desperately normally comes before the main verb: desperately needed. It cannot split need from its object or modify a noun, and need takes no for.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “desperately”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.