Wretch

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɹɛt͡ʃ/

Definitions

1. A person who is deeply unhappy, unfortunate, or deserving of pity and contempt
2. a miserable or contemptible person deserving of sympathy and disdain
3. someone in a state of profound unhappiness or moral degradation who inspires both pity and scorn

Etymology: Old English "wreċċa" meant "exile" or "outcast," a person driven from their home or community and left to fend for themselves. The sense of misery was present from the start: the exile's condition was the thing that defined them, not any fault of character. Over the Middle English period, "wrecche" gradually narrowed toward the modern sense of someone wretched and pitiable. The word has an unexpected cousin. "Garçon," the French word for "boy," comes from the same root, so the two are doublets: separate descendants of one ancestor that entered the language by different routes. The Old English ancestor also reached Old French, where it became a word for a servant or lad, while English kept the sense of the outcast. The shared Proto-Germanic source, "wrakjô," meant something like "exile" or "fugitive," and it links to a much older Indo-European root meaning "to track" or "follow."

Synonyms: miserable person, scoundrel, rascal, outcast, ne'er-do-well

Antonyms: hero, saint, champion, benefactor, good person