English → Latin
“desperately” in Latin
dēspēranterdesperately, hopelesslyimprobusexcessive, immoderate, flagrant, impudent; greedy, wanton, ravenous; wicked, bad, villainous, immoral, impious, maliciouscelestuswicked, villainous, criminal, abominable; calamitous, unfortunatemalusunpleasant, distressing, painful, nasty, bad; unpleasant to the senses, sight, smell, taste, touch; bad, evil, wicked, msuperabove, on top, over; upwards; moreover, in addition, besides, on top of this, too, alsomaximusbiggest, largest; loudest; unencumberedvaldēvery, very much, exceedingly; strongly, vigorously, intenselyvehemēnsvery eager; impetuous, ardent, furious; vehement; emphaticācersharp, sour, bitter, pungent; keen, sharp, acute, sagacious; energetic, active, vigorouspertināxpersevering, obstinate; pertinacious; tenacious
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
desperately
desperanter (without hope).
With verbs and adjectives, it expresses the intensity of the action or quality, and may be variously translated: improbe; sceleste; male; summe; suinmopere; maxime; valde; vehementer; acriter; pertinaciter. To defend one’s self desperately., *pertinacissime, or acerrime repugnare, resistere: to fall desperately in love, perdite or misere amare: to try desperately, perdite conari (Quint.): omnibus viribus contendere et laborare; omni ope atque opera eniti (ut, etc.): to be desperately angry, gravissima ira flagrare. It may often be translated by the superlative: desperately foolish, stolidissimus.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for desperately?
- The usual Latin words for “desperately” are dēspēranter, improbus, scelestus; also malus, super, maximus. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.