wretched

From Middle English wrecched, equivalent to wretch +‎ -ed.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛt͡ʃɪd/

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wretched (comparative wretcheder or more wretched, superlative wretchedest or most wretched)

1. Very miserable; feeling deep affliction or distress.

   I felt wretched after my wife died.

   • 1918, Maksim Gorky, chapter 4, in Creatures That Once Were Men, and other stories‎:

     As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.

2. Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.

   The street was full of wretched beggars dressed in rags.

   • 1864, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter 1, in Notes from Underground‎:

     My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:

     This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], OCLC 560090630:

     All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, […].

   • 2011 April 11, Phil McNulty, “Liverpool 3-0 Man City”, in BBC Sport:

     Mario Balotelli replaced Tevez but his contribution was so negligible that he suffered the indignity of being substituted himself as time ran out, a development that encapsulated a wretched 90 minutes for City and boss Roberto Mancini.

3. (informal) Used to express dislike of or annoyance towards the mentioned thing.

   Will you please stop playing that wretched trombone!

4. (obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable, wicked.
   • 1667, Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, “The Sixth Vision of Hell”, in R[oger] L[’Estrange], transl., The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, […], London: […] H[enry] Herringman […], OCLC 228725377, page 247:

     But a Devil came in juſt in the God-ſpeed, and told them; Gentlemen Philoſophers, (ſays he) if you vvould knovv the VVretched'ſt, and moſt contemptible thing in the VVorld; It is an Alchymiſt: […]

• (very miserable): See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:lamentable
• (worthless): See Thesaurus:insignificant
• (hatefully contemptible): See Thesaurus:despicable

• wretchedly
• wretchedness

• ratchet (adjective)
• wretch

• wretched in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• wretched in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “wretched”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.