deject

UK/dɪˈdʒɛkt/

verbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,997 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: dejected

To deject is to lower somebody's spirits. Deject the crew, thoroughly dejected, dejected by the news.

The verb is rare and the participle dejected does nearly all the work: a dejected figure is somebody visibly cast down. The Latin inside it means thrown down, and dejection is the noun. It describes the look as much as the feeling.

Definitions of deject

1verbdejectTo lower somebody's spirits.C2
“Nothing could deject him for long; he was always smiling again by lunchtime.”

deject is a discouraging.

Also accepted in games: dishearten

Where it comes from

Latin deicere means to throw down — de, down, plus iacere, to throw. Reject and eject are relatives.

Latin
dēiectus
Old French
dejeter
English, today
deject

Built from

deiciō · Latin — to throw down
dē- · Latin — from, down from
iaciō · Latin — to throw

From Old French dejeter, from Latin dēiectus, past participle of deiciō (“to throw down”), from dē- (“from, down from”) + iaciō (“to throw”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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