SORROWFUL

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss

Example:

even in laughter the heart is sorrowful

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

anguished; tormented; tortured (experiencing intense pain especially mental pain)

bereaved; bereft; grief-stricken; grieving; mourning; sorrowing (sorrowful through loss or deprivation)

bitter (expressive of severe grief or regret)

brokenhearted; heartbroken; heartsick (full of sorrow)

dolorous; dolourous; lachrymose; tearful; weeping (showing sorrow)

elegiac (expressing sorrow often for something past)

grievous; heartbreaking; heartrending (causing or marked by grief or anguish)

lamenting; wailful; wailing (vocally expressing grief or sorrow or resembling such expression)

lugubrious (excessively mournful)

mournful; plaintive (expressing sorrow)

sad (of things that make you feel sad)

woebegone; woeful (affected by or full of grief or woe)

Also:

unhappy (experiencing or marked by or causing sadness or sorrow or discontent)

joyless (not experiencing or inspiring joy)

Antonym:

joyful (full of or producing joy)

Derivation:

sorrowfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)

sorrowfulness (the state of being sad)

Credits

Context examples:

More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close; and time had softened down much, perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him, but she had been too dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place (except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture), or in any novelty or enlargement of society.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Agatha, the ever-gentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful until she came.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more, before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the evening.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, saying, Alas, my dearest child!

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

What sorrowful eyes you fix on me!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Her acceptance must be as certain as his offer; and yet there were bad feelings still remaining which made the prospect of it most sorrowful to her, independently, she believed, independently of self.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her eyes kindled as they turned wistfully toward the window, but they fell on the old house opposite, and she shook her head with sorrowful decision.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)