lorn

English

WOTD – 5 March 2018

Etymology

From Middle English lorn, loren, ilorn, iloren (past participle of lese, lesen (“to lose, be deprived of; to damn, doom to perdition”)), from Old English loren, ġeloren, from Proto-Germanic *galuzanaz, *luzanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *leusaną (“to lose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”). See further at lese.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /lɔːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /lɔɹn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)n

Adjective

lorn (comparative more lorn, superlative most lorn)

1. (obsolete) Doomed; lost.
2. (archaic) Abandoned, forlorn, lonely.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Ianuarie. Aegloga Prima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC, folio 2, recto:

     I loue thilke laſſe, (alas why do I loue:) / And am forlorne, (alas why am I lorne:) / Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reproue, / And of my rurall muſick holdeth ſcorne.

   • 1857, Gerald Griffin, “Addressed to a Friend”, in The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Gerald Griffin, Duffy: James Duffy 7 Wellington Quay, →OCLC, stanza VII, page 159:

     Yet, trust me, Memory's warmest sighs / Are often breathed in moments lorn— / And many a feeling thought will rise / And in the bosom die unborn.

   • 1870–1874, James Thomson, “The City of Dreadful Night”, in The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, […], published 1880, →OCLC, part XIX, stanza 1, pages 47–48:

     The mighty river flowing dark and deep, / With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides / Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, / Is named the River of the Suicides; / For night by night some lorn wretch overweary, / And shuddering from the future yet more dreary, / Within its cold secure oblivion hides.

   • 1963, Thomas Pynchon, “In which Benny Profane, a Schlemihl and Human Yo-yo, Gets to an Apocheir”, in V.: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Lippincott & Co., →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1964 March, →OCLC, page 19:

     He never found his beloved machine gun. Lorn and drained-nervous, he was fired next day.

Derived terms

• forlorn
• lasslorn
• lornness
• lovelorn

Translations

abandoned, forlorn, lonely — see also forlorn

Verb

lorn

1. (obsolete) past participle of lese.

Anagrams

• NROL, ORNL