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sorrow

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Sorrow

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English sorow, sorwe, sorghe, sorȝe, from Old English sorg, sorh (“care, anxiety, sorrow, grief”), from Proto-West Germanic *sorgu, from Proto-Germanic *surgō (compare West Frisian soarch, Dutch zorg, German Sorge, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sorg), from Proto-Indo-European *swergʰ- (“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”) (compare Old Irish serg (“sickness”), Tocharian B sark (“sickness”), Lithuanian sirgti (“be sick”), Sanskrit सूर्क्षति (sū́rkṣati, “worry”). Despite the similarity in form and meaning, not historically related to sorry and sore.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sorrow (countable and uncountable, plural sorrows)

  1. (uncountable) unhappiness, woe
    Synonyms: dejection; see also Thesaurus:sadness
  2. (countable) (usually in plural) An instance or cause of unhappiness.
    Synonyms: misfortune, woe; see also Thesaurus:disaster, Thesaurus:woe
    Parting is such sweet sorrow.
    • 1903, Maud Salvini, “Salvini as I Know Him”, in The Theatre, number 3, page 312:
      She had nursed all the children, including Sandro, to whom she was devoted, and my husband was just as fond of her. His going away to America was a great sorrow to her, and she always kept the sacred light burning on a little altar for Sandro all the time of his long absence.
    • 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 14:
      Vaublanc, in San Domingo so sympathetic to the sorrows of labour in France, had to fly from Paris in August, 1792, to escape the wrath of the French workers.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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sorrow (third-person singular simple present sorrows, present participle sorrowing, simple past and past participle sorrowed)

  1. (intransitive) To feel or express grief.
    Synonyms: grieve, mourn; see also Thesaurus:be sad
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 424:
      ‘Sorrow not, sir,’ says he, ‘like those without hope.’
    • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 11, page 241:
      When, as sometimes happens, a lad dies from the effect of the operation, he is buried secretly in the forest, and his sorrowing mother is told that the monster has a pig's stomach as well as a human stomach, and that unfortunately her son slipped into the wrong stomach.
  2. (transitive) To feel grief over; to mourn, regret.
    Synonyms: bewail, grieve; see also Thesaurus:lament

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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