Deplorable

How to spell deplorable

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce deplorable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does deplorable mean?

1. adjectiveDeserving strong condemnation; shockingly bad or wretched.

Deplorable in a sentence

• The tenants complained about the deplorable state of the building.

• The committee described his conduct as utterly deplorable.

Where does deplorable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb deplorare, which meant 'to weep over' or 'to lament bitterly', formed from the intensifying prefix de- and plorare, meaning 'to wail' or 'to cry aloud'. By Latin usage it had come to describe something so wretched that it was worth mourning, a thing past hope. English borrowed it through French déplorer in the sixteenth century, and the adjective deplorable settled into the language to mean 'lamentable' and then more broadly 'shockingly bad'. The original sense of weeping survives faintly in the modern feeling that a deplorable situation is one fit to grieve over. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle and the ending: it is -plor- (echoing the Latin plorare) followed by the very common suffix -able rather than -ible, so picturing the root 'plore' inside the word helps fix both the o and the a.

How the word is built

• de- (fully, intensifier)
• plor (from Latin plorare: to weep or wail)
• -able (worthy of, capable of)