Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Mental suffering caused by loss, disappointment, or misfortune, or an instance of this: synonym: regret.
  • noun A source or cause of sorrow; a misfortune.
  • noun Expression of sorrow, or an instance of this.
  • intransitive verb To feel or express sorrow. synonym: grieve.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To feel sorrow, sadness, regret, grief, or anguish; grieve; be sad; feel sorry.
  • To manifest sorrow; mourn; lament.
  • Synonyms To grieve, mourn. See sorrow, n.
  • To feel or display sorrow over; grieve for; mourn.
  • To give pain to; grieve.
  • To involve in sorrow; attach suffering or misery to.
  • noun Distress of mind caused by misfortune, injury, loss, disappointment, or the like; grief; misery; sadness; regret.
  • noun A cause or occasion of grief; a painful fact, event, or situation; a misfortune; a trouble.
  • noun The outward manifestation of grief; mourning; lamentation.
  • noun The devil: used generally as an expletive in imprecation, often implying negation. Compare devil, n., 7. Sometimes the muckle sorrow. Also spelled sorra.
  • noun Synonyms Grief, Wretchedness, etc. (see affliction), repentance, vexation, chagrin. See list under sadness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The uneasiness or pain of mind which is produced by the loss of any good, real or supposed, or by diseappointment in the expectation of good; grief at having suffered or occasioned evil; regret; unhappiness; sadness.
  • intransitive verb To feel pain of mind in consequence of evil experienced, feared, or done; to grieve; to be sad; to be sorry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable unhappiness, woe
  • noun countable (usually in plural) An instance or cause of unhappiness.
  • verb intransitive To feel or express grief.
  • verb transitive To feel grief over; to mourn, regret.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being sad
  • verb feel grief
  • noun something that causes great unhappiness
  • noun sadness associated with some wrong done or some disappointment
  • noun an emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sorwe, from Old English sorg.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English sorow, from Old English sorg, from Proto-Germanic *surgō (cf. Dutch zorg, German Sorge, Danish sorg), from Proto-Indo-European *su̯ergh- 'to watch over, worry' (cf. Old Irish serg 'sickness', Tocharian B sark 'id.', Lithuanian sirgti ‘to be sick’, Albanian dergjem ("I fall ill"), Sanskrit sū́rkṣati ‘he worries’ ).

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Examples

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  • "I am just 19 years old an undergraduate , I am confused, I don't know what to do. This is because I and my sister have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of incessant crisis in our country. The death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life."

    - spam.

    June 13, 2008