lorn

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English

WOTD – 5 March 2018

Etymology

From Middle English lorn, loren, ilorn, iloren (past participle of lese, lesen (“to lose, be deprived of; to damn, doom to perdition”)),[1] from Old English loren, ġeloren, from Proto-Germanic *galuzanaz, *luzanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *leusaną (“to lose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”). See further at lese.

Pronunciation

Adjective

lorn (comparative more lorn, superlative most lorn)

  1. (obsolete) Doomed; lost.
  2. (archaic) Abandoned, forlorn, lonely.
    • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Ianuarie. Aegloga Prima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: , London: Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, , →OCLC, folio 2, recto:
      I loue thilke laſſe, (alas why do I loue:) / And am forlorne, (alas why am I lorne:) / Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reproue, / And of my rurall muſick holdeth ſcorne.
    • 1857, Gerald Griffin, “Addressed to a Friend”, in The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Gerald Griffin, Duffy: James Duffy 7 Wellington Quay, →OCLC, stanza VII, page 159:
      Yet, trust me, Memory's warmest sighs / Are often breathed in moments lorn— / And many a feeling thought will rise / And in the bosom die unborn.
    • 1870–1874, James Thomson, “The City of Dreadful Night”, in The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, , published 1880, →OCLC, part XIX, stanza 1, pages 47–48:
      The mighty river flowing dark and deep, / With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides / Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, / Is named the River of the Suicides; / For night by night some lorn wretch overweary, / And shuddering from the future yet more dreary, / Within its cold secure oblivion hides.
    • 1963, Thomas Pynchon, “In which Benny Profane, a Schlemihl and Human Yo-yo, Gets to an Apocheir”, in V.: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Lippincott & Co., →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1964 March, →OCLC, page 19:
      He never found his beloved machine gun. Lorn and drained-nervous, he was fired next day.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

lorn

  1. (obsolete) past participle of lese.

References

  1. ^ “lẹ̄sen, v.(4)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Anagrams

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