desperado
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From Spanish desesperado, past participle of desesperar (“to despair”), from Latin disperare (“to despair, to lose hope”), from prefix dis- + sperare (“to hope”).
[edit] Noun
desperado (plural desperadoes or desperados)
- a bold outlaw, especially one from southern portions of the Wild West
- 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, The present time
- The kind of persons who excite or give signal to such revolutions — students, young men of letters […], or fierce and justly bankrupt desperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the millions and blowing it into flame, — might give rise to reflections as to the character of our epoch.
- 1918, Willa Cather, My Antonia, Mirado Modern Classics, paperback edition, page 6
- Surely this was the face of a desperado.
- 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, The present time
