keputusasaan (Indonesian)

Where does "keputusasaan" come from?

The Indonesian noun 'keputusasaan', meaning 'hopelessness, despair', is formed by combining the phrase 'putus asa' with the circumfix 'ke- -an'[1].

Full etymology tree

• keputusasaan (Indonesian), 'hopelessness, despair'
  • affix putus asa (Indonesian), 'to be hopeless, to despair'
  • confix ke- -an (Indonesian), '-ness; appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of (the adjective)", "the quality of (the adjective)", or "the measure of (the adjective)"'

Ancestors

• putus asa (Indonesian)
• ke- -an (Indonesian)

Sources

1. keputusasaan (Indonesian) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris