Disappointment

How to spell disappointment

14 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce disappointment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disappointment mean?

1. nounA feeling of sadness or dissatisfaction that arises when something falls short of one's hopes or expectations.

Disappointment in a sentence

• The cancelled flight was a major source of disappointment for the whole family.

• She hid her disappointment when the promotion went to a colleague instead.

Where does disappointment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Old French verb apointier, meaning 'to arrange' or 'to put in order', which itself grew from the phrase a point, literally 'to a point' in the sense of bringing something to readiness. From apointier English took 'appoint', meaning to fix or settle something, such as a meeting or an office. The prefix dis-, carrying the idea of reversal or undoing, was added to form 'disappoint', which in the 1400s meant to remove someone from an appointed post or to deprive them of something expected. Over the following centuries the meaning softened from being literally stripped of an office to the broader feeling of having one's hopes frustrated, and the noun 'disappointment' followed naturally. The spelling trap lives in that buried structure: just one s in dis- but a doubled p where the prefix meets 'appoint', which is exactly the opposite of what many writers guess.

How the word is built

• dis- (reversal, undoing)
• appoint (to assign or arrange, from Old French apointier)
• -ment (noun suffix)