DESPAIR

de-spar': The substantive only in 2 Corinthians 4:8, "perplexed, but not in (the Revised Version (British and American) "yet not unto") despair," literally, "being at a loss, but not utterly at a loss." "Unto despair" here conveys the force of the Greek prefix ex ("utterly," "out and out"). Desperate, in Job 6:26; Isaiah 17:11. In the latter instance, the Hebrew adjective is derived from a verb = "to be sick," and the literally, rendering would be "incurable" (compare Job 34:6, "my wound is incurable"). Desperately in Jeremiah 17:9 the King James Version, where the heart is said to be "desperately (i.e. incurably) wicked" or "sick."

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.