sorrow

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A deep feeling of sadness, especially after a loss.

   We felt tremendous sorrow at their loss.

2. 2
   noun

   An event or thing that causes great unhappiness.

   The loss of her job was just one of many sorrows that year.

3. 3
   verb

   To feel or express deep sadness.

   They sorrowed for the friends they had lost in the war.

From Middle English sorwe, sorow, sorewe, 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.

Topics