depressed

1. 1
   adjective

   Feeling unhappy and despondent, weighed down by low spirits and a lack of hope.

   After the divorce, he grew increasingly depressed and withdrawn.

   The whole team seemed depressed once the project was canceled.

   Similarunhappy, miserable, dejected, despondent, downcast

   Oppositecheerful

   Note

   The everyday mood word, the one to use when nothing medical is meant. Constance Garnett's 1917 translation of Chekhov sets it beside asthmatic, vague and over-feeble to describe a worn-down woman, which is a portrait, not a diagnosis. Miserable and sorrowful are its near neighbors, and cheerful is its opposite. Because the clinical meaning uses the same word, add clinically when a diagnosis is meant.

2. 2
   adjective

   Affected by clinical depression, a mental health condition marked by persistent low mood and loss of interest.

   He was diagnosed as clinically depressed after months of insomnia and fatigue.

   Patients who are depressed often respond well to a combination of therapy and medication.

   Similardespondent, dejected, miserable, dispirited, disheartened

   Oppositecheerful

3. 3
   adjective

   Weakened by economic recession, with low activity, employment, and demand.

   Investors avoided the depressed housing market during the downturn.

   Wages stayed low throughout the depressed coastal economy.

   Similarstagnant, sluggish, weak, slack, flat

   Oppositebooming, thriving, buoyant, prosperous

4. 4
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of depress.

   He depressed the brake pedal gently as the car slowed.

   The gloomy weather depressed her spirits for the whole trip.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs: he depressed the pedal (simple past), the pedal was depressed (participle). Because the participle can describe a state, it shades into the adjective. The test is grading: the adjective takes more depressed and most depressed, and the verb form does not. Most of depress's meanings, from pressing down to saddening to slowing an economy, leave an adjective behind, such as the everyday 'unhappy' meaning.

5. 5
   adjective

   Reduced to a lower degree, level, or simpler form.

   The anesthetic left the patient's reflexes noticeably depressed.

   A depressed freezing point lets salt water stay liquid below zero degrees.

   Similarreduced, diminished, blunted

   Oppositeraised, elevated, heightened

   Note

   Algebra gives the word a precise job. A depressed cubic is one in which a term has dropped out. In x³ + cx + d = 0, the squared term carries a coefficient of zero, and the equation takes a simpler shape. The adjective follows the mathematical use of the verb depress, to reduce an equation to a lower degree, and it stands before the name of the equation it describes.

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