- The members of the losing field-hockey team looked dejected; their heads were bowed,
and they were dragging their sticks.
To be dejected is to be in a state of dejection (di JEK shun). Rejection often causes dejection.
DEPLETE (di PLEET) v to decrease the supply of; to exhaust; to use up
- After three years of careless spending, the young heir had depleted his inheritance; he
was nearly in danger of having to work for a living. He regretted this depletion. - Irresponsible harvesting has seriously depleted the nation’s stock of old-growth trees.
- Illness has depleted Simone’s strength to the point at which she could barely stand
without assistance.
Replete means full. The noun is repletion.
- Annabelle is a fast typist, but her documents are often replete with errors.
DEPLORE (di PLOHR) v to regret; to condemn; to lament
- Deploring waste is one thing; actually learning to be less wasteful is another.
- Maria claimed to deplore the commercialization of Christmas, but she did spend several
thousand dollars on Christmas presents for each of her children.
DERIDE (di RYDE) v to ridicule; to laugh at contemptuously
- Gerald derided Diana’s driving ability after their hair-raising trip down the twisting
mountain road. - Sportswriters derided Columbia’s football team, which hadn’t won a game in three years.
- The boss derided his secretary mercilessly, so she quit her job. She was someone who
could not accept derision (di RIZH un).
DISPARATE (DIS pur it) adj different; incompatible; unequal
- Our interests were disparate: Cathy liked to play with dolls, and I liked to throw her dolls
out the window. - The disparate interest groups were united only by their intense dislike of the candidate.
- The novel was difficult to read because the plot consisted of dozens of disparate threads
that never came together.
The noun form of disparate is disparity (dih SPAR i tee). Disparity means inequality. The
opposite of disparity is parity.
EXONERATE (ig ZAHN uh rayt) v to free completely from blame; to exculpate
- The defendant, who had always claimed he wasn’t guilty, expected to be exonerated by
the testimony of his best friend. - Our dog was exonerated when we discovered that it was in fact the cat that had eaten
all the doughnuts.