Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A miserable, unfortunate, or unhappy person.
- noun A person regarded as base, mean, or despicable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A very miserable person; one who is in a state of desperate unhappiness or misfortune, or is exposed to unavoidable suffering or disgrace.
- noun A sorry or contemptible creature; a despicable person: a term of opprobrium applied to one who has incurred condemnation by misconduct, and often used on slight occasion and with little intended force.
- noun Body; creature; thing: used (in some manner that indicates the intention) of a person regarded with some degree of kindly or ironical commiseration, or, when genuine words of endearment seem inadequate, with tender sympathy or passion, or even with admiration.
- Miserable; wretched.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A miserable person; one profoundly unhappy.
- noun One sunk in vice or degradation; a base, despicable person; a vile knave.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
unhappy ,unfortunate , ormiserable person. - noun An
unpleasant ,annoying person. - noun archaic An
exile .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun performs some wicked deed
- noun someone you feel sorry for
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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‘None of your business, but yes, that poxy wretch is my father and no, she’s not.
Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Take Five Interview: Juliet Marillier and The Well of Shades 2007
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A wretch is to be hanged here for the crime this morning on his own confession, but it is believed that he was doomed to sacrifice himself by one of these societies, in order to screen the real murderers.
The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither Isabella Lucy 1883
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Policemen filed in; one or two cases were tried and dismissed, the Malay witnesses trembling from head to foot, and then the wretch from the cage was brought in looking hardly human, as, from under his shaggy, unshaven hair and unplaited pigtail which hung over his chest, he cast furtive, frightened glances at the array before him.
The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither Isabella Lucy 1883
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I continued: -- This poor wretch is deserted, dying, succourless; in these unhappy times, God knows how soon any or all of us may be in like want.
II.7 1826
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'O you vain wretch! to be sure you don't know, that though he is rich, you are richer? and, doubtless, you never took notice, that though he is handsome, you are handsomer?
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'And shall I entitle the wretch to upbraid me with his generosity, and his pity; and perhaps to reproach me for having been capable of forgiving crimes of such a nature?
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7 Samuel Richardson 1725
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Oh blest deliverance — what a profane wretch is here, and what a lewd world we live in — oh London, London, how thou aboundest in Iniquity, thy Young men are debaucht, thy Virgins defloured, and thy Matrons all turn'd Bawds! my Lady Fancy, this is not company for you I take it, let us fly from this vexation of spirit on the never-failing wings of discretion. —
Sir Patient Fancy 1678
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Oh I'le hear no more, — I'le hear no more — why what a Blasphemous wretch is this!
Sir Patient Fancy 1678
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Thereupon Shawahi came forward and kissing the ground before the Queen, took the hem of her garment and laid it on her head, saying, O Queen, by my claim for fosterage, be not hasty with him, more by token of thy knowledge that this poor wretch is a stranger, who hath adventured himself and suffered what none ever suffered before him, and Allah (to whom belong Might and
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‘And shall I entitle the wretch to upbraid me with his generosity, and his pity; and perhaps to reproach me for having been capable of forgiving crimes of such a nature?
Clarissa Harlowe 2006
madmouth commented on the word wretch
A troubled young Lise, after slamming a door onto her own finger, wails, “I am a wretch, wretch, wretch, wretch!�?
-Dostoyevsky, "Brothers Karamazov"
April 13, 2009