Wiktionary

sorrow

See also: Sorrow

English

edit

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

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

edit

Noun

edit

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

edit

Translations

edit

Verb

edit

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

edit

Translations

edit

References

edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=sorrow&oldid=82726365"
  NODES
Note 1