English

Suffix

-forsaken

1. Abandoned by.
   • 1820, Ann Ward Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, in ed., Anna Letitia Aikin Barbauld, The British Novelists: With an Essay, and Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, page 146

     For now all silent and forlorn / These tide-forsaken sands appear / Return, sweet sprites! the scene to cheer!

   • 1903, William Morris, The Story of Sigurd the Volsung: And the Fall of the Niblungs, page 230

     Must my stroke be a stroke of the guilty, though on sackless folk it fall ? / Shall a king sit joy-forsaken mid the riches of his hall ?

   • 1908, Edward Charles Booth, The Post-girl, page 406

     Had the Spawer known it, he would have had mercy, and surrendered this wordy victory rather than fight to the finish with the poor God-forsaken, love-forsaken, self-forsaken devil that cut and lunged so furiously at him.

   • 1911, Robert Frost, "My Giving"

     Here I shall sit, the fire out, and croon / All the dismal and joy-forsaken airs, / Sole alone, and thirsty with them that thirst, / Hungry with them that hunger and are accurst.

   • 1922, John Corbin, The Return of the Middle Class, page 87

     A cub reporter, assigned to interview a citizen of Brooklyn, returned to his city editor baffled. Not one of those whom he encountered across the bridge would direct him to the street and number. The reason for this, the lad alleged, was that for any one to do so was to admit himself a resident of that joy-forsaken suburb.

   • 1967, Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, page 54

     — any more than man could survive without massive equipment on the life-forsaken moon.

   • 1999, Rachel L. Bagby, Divine Daughters: Liberating the Power and Passion of Women's Voices, page 12

     Our choices were to shimmy down water-forsaken rocks during the bit of light left or find ourselves in the hard place of being lost in Yosemite at night.

Derived terms

Usage notes

Although the overwhelming number of instances of usage of this suffix is in the word God-forsaken, writers have used it in combination with other words.