1 Definition
A sudden feeling of anxiety or discouragement caused by something unexpected or troubling, often strong enough to sap one's resolve.
2 In Use
She stared at the overflowing inbox in quiet dismay, unsure where to even begin.
3 Word Origin
exmagare V.Lat. · to deprive of power → desmaier O.Fr. · to lose courage → dismay Middle English
Dismay traces back to a Vulgar Latin form built from the prefix ex, meaning out of or away from, joined to a Germanic root related to might or power. That combination passed into Old French as desmaier, meaning to lose one's strength or courage in the face of danger. Middle English borrowed the word in the thirteenth century, and over time its sense narrowed from a literal loss of physical power to the emotional collapse we recognize today, that jolt of discouragement when confidence suddenly drains away.
💡Fun Fact
Dismay has long had a place in formal and rhetorical English, most famously in the recurring biblical exhortation 'fear not, neither be thou dismayed,' a phrase that appears across multiple books and translations as a command against despair in the face of looming threat. Shakespeare leaned on the word too, scattering it through his history plays to describe soldiers losing their nerve before battle. Its slightly elevated tone has kept it alive in formal speech and headlines even as everyday conversation leans on more casual words like upset or rattled. The word also survives in the adjective dismayed and the related, rarer noun dismayedness, though the latter has mostly fallen out of use.