When you're disheartened, you feel discouraged or let down. It's easy to become disheartened if the grades on your report card don't reflect the hard work and dedication you exerted.
You might be disheartened to read about the high unemployment rate in the newspaper, or disheartened by the way your carefully constructed rocket ship cake flopped. When you feel your spirits sink or your courage fail, you're disheartened. The first recorded use of the word dishearten showed up in Shakespeare's play Henry V, where he invented it to mean the opposite of hearten, or "encourage."
