Difference Between Deject and Reject

Key Difference – Deject vs Reject
 

Deject and reject form the two commonly confused adjectives dejected and rejected. Deject or dejected means feeling sad or dispirited. Although the adjective dejected is commonly used in the English language, the verb deject is an archaic word. Reject means to dismiss something or someone as inadequate, unacceptable, or faulty. Thus, the key difference between deject and reject is their meaning.

What Does Deject or Dejected Mean?

The verb deject means to make sad or dispirited or depress. However, this verb is considered as an archaic word, which is no longer in usage. Its adjective which takes the past form, however, is still in usage. Dejected means to sad and depressed. The following sentences will help you to understand the usage of this word better.

Her dejected expression told us that something bad has happened.

The dejected players left the field.

Despite all her problems, she never looked dejected or dispirited.

She left the city, dejected and depressed.

Her normally happy expression turns dejected whenever someone speaks his name.

What Does Reject or Rejected Mean?

Reject refers to refusing to accept, believe, or consider something and dismissing it as inadequate, unacceptable, or faulty. For example, you might reject someone’s explanation about something because you feel that it’s not true. Or imagine a situation where you send write an article or story to be published and they return it saying that it is not adequate or acceptable. Here, they are rejecting your work. Being rejected can make you feel dejected.

Reject can be also used as a noun. As a noun, reject refers to a person or thing that is dismissed. For example,

They sold rejects from the factory.

For many years, he was considered as a social reject.

The rejected manuscript was returned to the owner.

The teacher rejected her excuse for being late.

This novel was rejected twice by famous publishing houses.

They rejected 40 out of the 50 applications.

This explanation has been rejected due to lack of evidence.

What is the difference between Deject and Reject?

Usage:

Deject is considered as an archaic word.

Reject is commonly used in the language.

Meaning:

Deject means to make sad or dispirited or depress.

Reject means to refuse to accept, believe, or consider something and dismiss it as inadequate, unacceptable, or faulty.

Grammatical Categories:

Deject is a verb.

Reject is a noun and a verb.

Adjective:

Deject is only as its adjectival form: dejected.

Rejected is the adjectival form of rejected.

Image Courtesy: “rejected” by Sean MacEntee (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr “The despair” Pabak Sarkar (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr

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