Meaning of disappointment in English

disappointment

noun

/ˌdɪs.əˈpɔɪnt.mənt/ us

/ˌdɪs.əˈpɔɪnt.mənt/

Add to word list Add to word list

B1 [ U ]

the feeling of being disappointed:

avoid disappointment Get tickets early to avoid disappointment.

to someone’s disappointment To my disappointment (= sadness), he decided to leave.

B1 [ C usually singular ]

something or someone that is not what you were hoping it would be:

The party turned out to be a huge disappointment.

great disappointment The decision to abandon the project was a great disappointment to him.

bitter disappointment He is certainly a bitter disappointment to the people of this country.

disappointment to I always felt I was a disappointment to my parents.

More examplesFewer examples

Their son has been a deep disappointment to them.
She tried to hide her disappointment at not getting the promotion.
The match ended in disappointment for the retiring captain, Viv Richards.
She swallowed her disappointment, saying, "That's OK, it doesn't matter."
Failing the final exams was a bitter disappointment for me.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Disappointing yourself and others

See more results »

(Definition of disappointment from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

disappointment | American Dictionary

disappointment

noun [ C/U ]

/ˌdɪs·əˈpɔɪnt·mənt/

Add to word list Add to word list

the unhappiness or discouragement that results when your hopes or expectations have not been satisfied, or someone or something that is not as good as you had hoped or expected:

[ U ] Her disappointment showed on her face.

[ C ] After two losing seasons, we felt he was a disappointment as a coach.

(Definition of disappointment from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of disappointment

disappointment

Second, the range of explanations for both relative disappointments and successes bears expanding.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Lamentable shortcomings become apparent here, which in some cases certainly lead to personal disappointments and require unprejudiced clarification by historical science.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Any book of this kind is bound to provoke some disagreement and minor disappointments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He draws a comparison with similar disappointments felt with regard to other reforms or social changes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The text does contain a few drawbacks or disappointments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Indeed, one of the key disappointments of the current national childcare strategy is the continuing lack of childcare places.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

There are a few revelations, but too many disappointments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The private family sphere was no communal realm of virtue ' ruled by altruism and love ', but instead a 'sphere of expectations, disappointments, critique, and moral judgement ' (p. 28).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

They also made the fewest references to environmental and life-style advantages and unanticipated benefits, complemented by significantly frequent references to problems and disappointments in this category.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The fact that so many disappointments with the reality of such services were voiced seemed, at its simplest, to reflect a lack of shared agendas between the parties.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

They also experience continuous disappointments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The external events draw a profile of a successf ul woman who no doubt suffered disappointments and setbacks but never theless continued to struggle and achieve a great deal.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In these circumstances, most parents would decide to have the operation performed, even though doing so would mean that the child would suffer greater disappointments in life.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

His eventual blindness is hardly touched upon in the narrative, despite its prominence in the title, which is one of the few disappointments in his compelling narrative.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

On the former, the advantages and surpassed expectations clearly exceeded the problems and disappointments, so that for 80 per cent of our informants, their well-being score was positive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of disappointment

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with disappointment

disappointment

These are words often used in combination with disappointment.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

big disappointment

But the big disappointment is how little current empirical evidence is drawn upon to support their claims.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

bitter disappointment

To those who had aspired to better things, the horrors of the half century after emancipation came as a bitter disappointment.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

deep disappointment

The publication of these letters must have been a deep disappointment to those who thought that a great moral scandal was likely to be revealed.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

See all collocations with disappointment

What is the pronunciation of disappointment?

Translations of disappointment

in Chinese (Traditional)

失望，沮喪, 令人失望的人（或事物）…

Meaning of disappointment in English

disappointment | American Dictionary

Examples of disappointment

Collocations with disappointment

disappointment

Translations of disappointment

Browse

Learn more with +Plus

Learn more with +Plus