sorrow

• sorrowe (obsolete)

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sŏrʼō, IPA^(key): /ˈsɒɹ.əʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑɹ.oʊ/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈsɔɹ.oʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒɹəʊ

sorrow (countable and uncountable, plural sorrows)

1. (uncountable) unhappiness, woe

   Synonyms: dejection; see also Thesaurus:sadness

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
     Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

   • August 28, 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 47

     The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.

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.

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

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book II, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:

     It is impossible to make a man naturally blind, to conceive that he seeth not; impossible to make him desire to see, and sorrow his defect.

• besorrow

• “sorrow”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "sorrow" in WordNet 3.1, Princeton University, 2011.