dejected
sad and low-spirited
Roots
Other words with the ject root
- abject: miserable, degraded, or hopeless
- conjectural: based on guesswork rather than proof
- conjecture: a guess based on incomplete evidence
- eject: to throw out
- interject: to throw a remark into a conversation
- jettison: to throw away or discard
- project: to throw forward; plan or estimate
De- gives down and ject gives throw. Dejected is emotionally thrown down.
He looked dejected after missing the score cutoff by one point.
Dejected works because mood becomes motion. The person is not just sad; they feel cast downward. Put it beside abject: dejected is low in spirit, abject is low in condition or dignity.