hopelessly

adverb hope·less·ly \ ˈhō-pləs-lē \

|Updated on: 25 Jul 2018

Definition of hopelessly

: in a hopeless manner —used especially as an intensifier

the formerly despised and hopelessly middle-class game of golf
—Ejner Jensen

Recent Examples of hopelessly from the Web

Depictions of China as a trade-reliant economy are hopelessly outdated: net exports account for just 2% of national income.

— The Economist, "As its trade tussle with America heats up, China is on the back foot," 5 July 2018
So now Trump, Republicans in Congress, and his right-wing press cohort are stepping up their efforts to make the case that the FBI is hopelessly corrupt and engaged in a conspiracy to usurp his presidency.

— frank rich, Daily Intelligencer, "Washington Gets to Indulge Its Bipartisan Fantasies for 3 More Weeks," 24 Jan. 2018
Sign-up Usually, this ends up producing a bottleneck of talent or results in hopelessly unbalanced teams.

— jonathan clegg, WSJ, "Croatia: The World Cup’s Russian Nesting Dolls," 6 July 2018
Yet to critics, the Chinese approach is akin to what corporate Japan did in the 1980s: overpay for trophy assets in a hopelessly undisciplined way.

— The Economist, "Chinese and US tech giants go at it in emerging markets," 5 July 2018
Opera, particularly in the United States, all too often gets the short end of the stick in popular media, frequently perceived as elitist or simply hopelessly out of touch with modern audiences (a discussion for another time).

— weston williams, The Christian Science Monitor, "'Verdi' takes a lively approach to uncovering the man behind the art," 4 July 2018
My film, called Ugly Beauty, wandered hopelessly about the territory searching for answers.

— waldemar januszczak, A-LIST, "Kate Moss: The Golden Girl," 1 July 2018
Separating this intricate and almost hopelessly tangled web into three workable parts?

— dale kasler, sacbee, "This one issue could make splitting California into three states virtually impossible," 25 June 2018
USA TODAY Sports MOSCOW — There was a time when soccer looked hopelessly out of touch for refusing to implement video replay to assist with its most crucial decisions.

— martin rogers, USA TODAY, "Video replay (VAR) is a joke, and it's making the World Cup worse," 23 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'hopelessly.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.