Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Depressing |
DepressingAdjective1. Causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war"; "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather". 2. Causing or suggestive of sorrow or gloom; "a gloomy outlook"; "gloomy news". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "depressing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1601. (references) |
Synonyms: DepressingSynonyms: blue (adj), dark (adj), depressive (adj), disconsolate (adj), dismal (adj), dispiriting (adj), gloomy (adj), grim (adj), saddening (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Dejection | Dreary, flat; dull, dull as a beetle, dull as ditchwater; depressing; Verb: |
Pain | Distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, disheartening; depressing, depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | It's just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. (Monty Python and the Holy Grail; writing credit: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.) How depressing. (Beast Wars: Transformers; writing credit: Bob Forward; Lawrence G. DiTillio) I've never worked in a funeral home that was more depressing. (Six Feet Under; writing credit: David Starkey) I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad, and it's depressing. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) It's too depressing to think about (Animal House; writing credit: Harold Ramis; Douglas Kenney) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
 |
| "When life Sucks" by Ariel C. Commentary: "Me during the most depressing days of my life." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Oscar Wilde | The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. (references) | |
Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. (references) | ||
Nearly all abused inhalants (other than nitrites) produce a pleasurable effect by depressing the CNS. Evidence from animal studies suggests that a number of commonly abused volatile solvents and anesthetic gases have neurobehavioral effects and mechanisms of action similar to those produced by CNS depressants, which include alcohol and medications such as sedatives and anesthetics. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Depressing" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.91% of the time. "Depressing" is used about 644 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.91% | 637 | 10,219 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 0.78% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Noun (singular) | 0.31% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 644 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "depressing": depressing force. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "depressing": depressing-looking. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "depressing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i mërzitshëm (annoying, boring, bothersome, corny, dead alive, dissatisfactory, dreary, dry, dull, fatiguing, fierce, pesky, plaguesome, pragmatical, slow, tedious, tiresome, weariful, wearisome, weary), i dëshpëruar (depressed, desperate, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, downcast, forlorn, heavyhearted, hopeless, sad). (various references) | |
Arabic | كئيب (bleak, blue, cheerless, damp, dark, dejected, depressed, depressive, desolate, disconsolate, dismal, dispirited, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorous, down, downcast, down-hearted, drear, dreary, droopy, dyspeptic, funeral, funereal, gloomy, glum, gray, grey, grief-stricken, grieved, grievous, heavy-hearted, ill, joyless, leaden, lifeless, low-spirited, melancholic, melancholy, moody, mournful, out of spirits, rueful, sad, saddening, somber, sombre, spiritless, sullen, tearful, weary), محزن (dismal, distressing, doleful, dolorous, gloomy, grievous, mournful, pathetic, rueful, sad, saddening, sorrowful, tragic, woeful), مسبب للكآبة, قابض. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | гнетящ, мрачен (black, bleak, cheerless, comfortless, darksome, dejected, dim, dingy, dismal, drab, drear, dumpish, dusky, forbidding, gaunt, gloomy, glum, grave, grey, grim, grisly, heavy, inhospitable, joyless, low-browed, lowering, melancholy, mirk, morbid, morose, murk, murky, obscure, sad, saturnine, somber, sombre, sullen, sunless, tenebrous, thick, tristful). (various references) | |
Chinese | 压下 (Depress, Depressed). (various references) | |
Czech | deprimující (disheartening), depresivní (depressive), tristní (dismal), sklièující (disheartening, oppressive, sad), pochmurný (bleak, dismal, gloomy, lugubrious, subdued). (various references) | |
Dutch | door intrappen in werking te stellen rem (brake applied by depressing the brake pedal), indrukkracht (depressing force). (various references) | |
Finnish | masentava. (various references) | |
French | déprimant (demoralizing), décourageant, triste (dead, depressed), en déclin (depressed, in depression). (various references) | |
German | deprimierend (depressingly), bedrückend (aggrieving, heavy, oppressive, pressing), gedrückt (dejected, depressed, glum, pressed, shirked). (various references) | |
Greek | εσώτερος μανδύας (depressing cladding). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מעציב (dolorous, melancholy, sad, saddening, sorry, woeful), מדכא (oppressive, oppressor, repressive, suppressor). (various references) | |
Hungarian | nyomasztó (gloomy, Gray, grey, grim, grinding, heavy, leaden, mortifying, oppressive, stunning, sweltering), lehangoló (damper, depressive, disconcerting, dismal, distressing, humping, trying), elszomorító (distressing, saddening, woeful). (various references) | |
Indonesian | memuramkan. (various references) | |
Italian | deprimente (miserable), opprimente (heavy, muggy, oppressive, overpowering, overwhelming, possessive), angustiante. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 鬱陶しい (gloomy), 暗たん (dark, gloomy, somber), 暗澹 (dark, gloomy, somber). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | うっとうしい (gloomy), あんたん (dark, gloomy, somber). (various references) | |
Korean | 우울하게 함. (various references) | |
Manx | groamey (depressive, ill-tempered, joyless, moody, sepulchral, sombre). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | epressingday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | desanimador (discouraging), deprimente (melancholy), depressivo (depressive). (various references) | |
Romanian | deprimant (chilly, disheartening), trist (bleak, blue, cheerless, dark, darkish, dispirited, doleful, dolefully, dolorous, downcast, drab, dreary, dull, dumpish, elegiac, glum, joyless, lamenting, maudlin, melancholy, miserable, mournful, mournfully, pensive, pensively, rueful, sad, sadly, sorrowful, splenetic, sullen, tough, unfortunate, unhappy, woebegone, woeful). (various references) | |
Russian | унылый (bleak, chap-fallen, cheerless, crest-fallen, depressed, despondent, downcast, downhearted, down-hearted, dumpy, gloomy, godforsaken, heavy-hearted, howling, low-spirited, mopish, rueful, somber, sombre), гнетущий (dismal, oppressive), понижать;подавлять угнетающий. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | depresivan, koji obeshrabruje. (various references) | |
Spanish | deprimente (blue, dismal, sickening). (various references) | |
Swedish | deprimerande (depressive), nedslående (depressive, disappointing, discouraging, disheartening), beklämmande (disheartening). (various references) | |
Turkish | moral bozucu, iç karartıcı (drear, dreary, gloomy, sad, somber, sombre, sullen), hüzünlü (blue, cheerless, doleful, downcast, dreary, elegiac, funereal, gloomy, glum, melancholic, rueful, sad, somber, sombre, sorrowful), acıklı (deplorable, distressful, distressing, dolorous, hurtful, lugubrious, pathetic, piteous, rueful, sad, sorrowful, tearful, touching, weepy, woeful). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гнітючий (discouraging, dismal, oppressive, sulky, sullen), нудний (arid, barren, dead alive, heartbreaking, humdrum, insipid, irksome, long winded, matter of fact, monotonous, prolix, prosaic, prosy, repetitious, soggy, stodgy, stuffy, stupid, tedious, weariful, wearying, workaday). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | làm thất vọng (cold, disappointing, sickening), làm phiền muộn làm trì trệ, làm ngã lòng; làm buồn rầu, làm chán nản (discouraging), làm buồn phiền, làm đình trệ. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "depressing": depressingly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Depressing" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Debrezcin, degressing, depessing. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "depressing" (pronounced dupre"sing) |
| 7 | -u p r e" s i ng | oppressing, suppressing. |
| 6 | -p r e" s i ng | compressing, expressing, impressing, pressing, repressing. |
| 5 | -r e" s i ng | addressing, digressing, distressing, dressing, progressing, redressing, stressing. |
| 4 | -e" s i ng | acquiescing, assessing, blessing, caressing, coalescing, confessing, guessing, messing, obsessing, possessing, professing, reassessing, recessing. |
| 3 | -s i ng | annexing, announcing, accessing, advancing, affixing, amassing, balancing, basing, bouncing, boxing, bracing, busing, bussing, buttressing, bypassing, canvassing, casing, ceasing, chasing, classing, coaxing, coercing, collapsing, commencing, condensing, conferencing, conversing, convincing, coursing, crisscrossing, crossing, cursing, cussing, dancing, debasing, decreasing, defacing, denouncing, diagnosing, disbursing, discussing, dismissing, dispensing, dispersing, displacing, distancing, divorcing, dosing, dousing, dowsing, eclipsing, effacing, embarrassing, embracing, encompassing, endorsing, enforcing, engrossing, enhancing, enticing, erasing, expensing, experiencing, facing, faxing, fencing, financing, fixing, flexing, focusing, forcing, freelancing, fundraising, fussing, gassing, glancing, greasing, grimacing, grossing, grousing, hairdressing, harassing, harnessing, hissing, horsing, icing, increasing, indexing, inducing, influencing, intermixing, introducing, invoicing, kissing, Lancing, lapsing, leasing, lensing, licensing, loosing, massing, menacing, mensing, mincing, missing, mixing, noticing, nursing, outdistancing, outpacing, outsourcing, overproducing, pacing, parsing, passing, perplexing, piecing, piercing, placing, policing, pouncing, practicing, prancing, prejudicing, pricing, processing, producing, promising, pronouncing, pulsing, racing, rebalancing, reducing, referencing, refinancing, refocusing, rehearsing, reimbursing, reinforcing, reintroducing, rejoicing, relapsing, relaxing, releasing, reminiscing, renouncing, replacing, repricing, reprocessing, reproducing, repulsing, repurchasing, resurfacing, retracing, reversing, rinsing, romancing, sacrificing, seducing, sensing, sentencing, sequencing, servicing, showcasing, silencing, slicing, sluicing, sourcing, spacing, spicing, splicing, sprucing, subleasing, surfacing, surpassing, taxing, teleconferencing, tossing, tracing, traipsing, traversing, trespassing, trouncing, unceasing, unconvincing, underpricing, unpromising, vexing, videoconferencing, voicing, waltzing, waxing, wincing, wissing, witnessing, xeroxing. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-e-g-i-n-p-r-s-s" | |
-1 letter: designers, dispenser, redesigns, speedings, speerings. | |
-2 letters: designer, despiser, direness, dispense, disperse, dressing, edginess, energids, erepsins, greisens, presides, pressing, redesign, reedings, resigned, ripeness, speeding, speering, spenders, springed, springes. | |
-3 letters: deniers, depress, designs, desires, despise, digress, dingers, dreeing, energid, engirds, erepsin, genders, genesis, greisen, ingress, nereids, peering, penises, pinders, pingers, preeing, preside, pressed, prissed, redness. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-e-g-i-n-p-r-s-s" | |
+1 letter: preassigned, superseding. | |
+2 letters: depressingly, derepressing. | |
+3 letters: decompressing, disrespecting, predesignates, predigestions, sheepherdings. | |
+4 letters: depressurizing, disparagements. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
