Desperate1. (a.) With little hope; on a last resort.
2. (a.) Beyond hope; causing despair; extremely perilous; irretrievable; past cure, or, at least, extremely dangerous; as, a desperate disease; desperate fortune.
3. (a.) Proceeding from, or suggested by, despair; without regard to danger or safety; reckless; furious; as, a desperate effort.
4. (a.) Extreme, in a bad sense; outrageous; -- used to mark the extreme predominance of a bad quality.
5. (n.) One desperate or hopeless.
Thesaurus Entries
Dionysiac, accident-prone, aching for, acute, affording no hope, amok, apathetic, atrocious, bacchic, baffled, balked, berserk, bleak, breakneck, careless, cheerless, climacteric, comfortless, compelling, concentrated, corybantic, craving, critical, crucial, crying, dangerous, desirous of, despairing, despondent, desponding, devil-may-care, dire, disconsolate, dismal, exquisite, fierce, foiled, foolhardy, forlorn, frantic, frenetic, frenzied, frustrated, furious, grave, great, grim, hard pressed, hard up, harum-scarum, hasty, hazardous, headlong, heinous, hopeless, hotheaded, hurried, impetuous, in despair, in desperate straits, in extremis, in extremities, like one possessed, mad, madding, maenadic, maniac, maniacal, monstrous, overeager, overenthusiastic, overzealous, panic-stricken, perilous, pinched, precarious, precipitant, precipitate, precipitous, pressing, rabid, raging, ranting, rash, raving, raving mad, reckless, running wild, scandalous, serious, shocking, slap-bang, slapdash, sorely pressed, stark-raving mad, straitened, tenuous, terrible, thwarted, uncontrollable, unhopeful, up against it, urgent, vehement, venturesome, vicious, violent, wanton, wild, without hope, wretched