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Glite Dictionary
🚫 No chance 😞 Without hope 😓 Lacking skill
hopeless

hopeless

31 1.6
Not able to do something well
  • adjective
  • /ˈhoʊpləs/
translation icon : inepto
  • Then again, I was always hopeless at chatting up women.

And I, you know, I've, I've, I've worked with some of the best heart rate recovery people and I'm hopeless at it.

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Examples

  • Unfortunately, when it came to math, she was hopeless, and that infuriated her father.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • So if I go, if I go right back as a child I was so shy, I had no confidence, I failed all my exams, I was hopeless at sport.

    The Diary Of A CEO

  • I say nothing, trying to think of another student as hopeless as William.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • And some people are just plain hopeless.

    Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

  • In that voice he reserved for his densest students, the hopeless cases, the ones he had diagnosed as lost causes.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • My everyday life with my idiotic, hopeless, and self-conscious friends still continues!

    Science Please! : The Force of Water (1998)

  • Otherwise, he'd disappear into his workshop and make these hopeless wooden toys.

    Locked Down (2021)

  • "Oh yes," Regan chuckled, "he was a hopeless romantic." Maura hit John's knee.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Stuart dropped hints now and then, in his polite, witty, hopeless way, but he wasn't serious and April wasn't interested.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • When it comes to singing, I feel completely hopeless and can't carry a tune.

Synonyms

helpless
vshopeless
243 2.0

Not able to act or protect yourself

is about lacking skill for an activity rather than lacking power or control
inept
vshopeless
49 5.0

Not good at something and often clumsy

is about failing at a particular activity rather than general clumsiness
unskillful
vshopeless
1 4.4

Not able to do something well

is about personal inability at a task rather than a single poor action

Antonyms

capable
945 1.4

Able to do something well because of skill or training

skilled
172 3.5

Having special training and ability to do a job well

How Competent

expert
3 3.5
skilled
172 3.5
competent
114 3.6
hopeless
31 1.6
incompetent
141 4.9

Surface Forms

hopeless positive

Morphology

hopeless = hope (semi-transparent) = hope + less

Though morphologically 'hope' + '-less' suggests 'without hope', the sense 'unable or lacking skill' (e.g., 'hopeless at chess') is an extended, idiomatic use not directly predictable from the base.

Etymology

Hopeless comes from the common word hope plus the ending -less meaning 'without', so a 'hopeless' person is one 'without hope' of getting better at a skill; that's why we say someone is hopeless at driving when they are very bad at it.