What does deplorer mean?
The deplorer is a noun for a person who deplores: someone who mourns a loss, regrets a situation, or laments what is wrong. The word is uncommon and has a literary, occasionally faintly critical tone, because describing someone repeatedly as a “deplorer” can imply habitual complaint rather than dignified grief. It is most often used in the pattern “a deplorer of something,” identifying the person’s object of concern. Thus “deplorer of injustice” presents someone as grieving over or vigorously regretting injustice, while “deplorer of vanished days” sounds more openly elegiac. The related verb deplore carries the core action, and the agent suffix -er turns that action into a person. Unlike a general word for mourner, deplorer can imply not only private sorrow but an articulate or sustained lament. Its rarity and formal tone make it useful in literary and rhetorical contexts, where it gives precision to the idea of a person who protests suffering by mourning it.
nounA person who deplores; someone who mourns, deeply regrets, or laments a situation or condition.
- A person who deplores, especially someone who mourns or expresses profound regret about a condition or event.
"The novel presents the ruined village as something its characters will spend the rest of their lives deploring."
"A lifelong deplorer of the countryside, she watched another old orchard disappear."
"The editor dismissed the novelist as a professional deplorer, unwilling to consider that grief might sharpen his work."
The plural is deplorers, though the noun itself is uncommon.
"The novel never lets its readers forget that they, too, are deplorers of the vanished countryside."
Give “deplore” the suffix -er and sorrow acquires a character: the deplorer, someone defined by lamenting what is wrong.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does deplorer come from?
The English noun deplorer was formed from the verb deplore by adding the agentive suffix -er. Deplore came into Middle English through Old French from Latin deplorare, meaning “to weep or lament.” The Latin combines de-, indicating completion or intensity, with plorare, “to weep”; related forms include deploration and deplorable.
How deplorer is actually used
The noun is uncommon and literary. It can convey dignified sorrow, especially in phrases such as “a deplorer of injustice,” but in a critical context it may suggest someone who indulges in habitual lamentation.
Easily confused with deplorer
Deplore is the verb meaning to mourn or deeply regret something, whereas a deplorer is the person who does so.