adj. 25B6; adjective
a desperate look : DESPAIRING, hopeless; anguished, distressed, wretched, desolate, forlorn, distraught, fraught; out of one's mind, at one's wits' end, beside oneself, at the end of one's tether.
a desperate attempt to escape : LAST-DITCH, last-gasp, eleventh-hour, do-or-die, final; frantic, frenzied, wild; futile, hopeless, doomed.
a desperate shortage of teachers : GRAVE, serious, critical, acute, risky, precarious; dire, awful, terrible, dreadful; urgent, pressing, crucial, vital, drastic, extreme; informal chronic.
they were desperate for food : IN GREAT NEED OF, urgently requiring, in want of; eager, longing, yearning, hungry, crying out; informal dying.
a desperate act : VIOLENT, dangerous, lawless; reckless, rash, hasty, impetuous, foolhardy, incautious, hazardous, risky; death-or-glory, do-or-die.