Bereft sth을 빼앗기다. 소유를 박탈당하다. 결여되다. 사랑하는 사람의 죽음으로 고통받는. (1554년)
1
a
: deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something —usually used with of
both players are instantly bereft of their poise
—A. E. Wier
b
: lacking something needed, wanted, or expected —used with of
the book is … completely bereft of an index
—The Times Literary Supplement (London)
2
: suffering the death of a loved one : BEREAVED
a bereft mother
Did you know?
In Old English, the verb berēafian meant "to plunder or rob." The modern equivalent (and descendant) of berēafian is bereave, a verb that implies that you have robbed or stripped someone of something, often suddenly and unexpectedly, and sometimes by force. Bereft comes from the past participle of bereave; Shakespeare uses the participle in The Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio tells Portia, "Madam, you have bereft me of all words." But by Shakespeare's day bereft was also being used as an adjective. The Bard uses it in The Taming of the Shrew, as a newly obedient and docile Katharina declares, "A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled—muddy, … thick, bereft of beauty."
Synonyms
bereaved
Examples of bereft in a Sentence
She finds the child's mother, alone, who has apparently gone into the woods just to cry. The bereft mother is played by Julianne Moore.
—Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic, 31 Jan. 2000
… made the tabloids when his wife ran off to France with her dentist and the bereft realtor placed a newspaper ad for a girl to adopt to keep him company.
—Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie, 1998
It's not that the country was completely bereft of humor.
—Joseph Contrevas, Newsweek, 6 June 1994
to one investigator, the bereft woman seemed to be taking the sudden death of her rich husband amazingly well
a cheap motel completely bereft of all amenities
Recent Examples on the Web
The scale of the death and destruction in Israel and Gaza was historic and shocking, yet in both places, the scope of the violence was best understood at the most basic level, in the funerals and the faces, the families torn to pieces, the sudden orphans and the bereft mothers and fathers.
—Bishop Sand, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2023
After four seasons cycling through alliances and betrayals, the contest over which of Logan Roy’s four children would be sociopathic enough to inherit his empire concluded with a fittingly Pyrrhic victory that left them all stone-faced and bereft.
—Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 5 Dec. 2023
Jeremy Best, the Idaho man who was allegedly found naked next to his deceased 10-month-old son and was arrested in connection with the murder of his pregnant wife, appeared shirtless and bereft in his first court appearance on Monday.
—Samira Asma-Sadeque, Peoplemag, 5 Dec. 2023
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bereft.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
see BEREAVE
First Known Use
1554, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
