soreness

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a pain that is felt (as when the area is touched)
  2. noun an uncomfortable feeling of mental painfulness or distress

Etymology

From Middle English sornes, sornesse, sarnesse, from Old English sārnes (“bodily pain; mental pain, affliction, grief”), from Proto-West Germanic *sairanassī, equivalent to sore + -ness. Cognate with Scots sairness (“soreness”), Old Frisian sērnisse, sērnesse (“injury, lesion”), Middle Low German sêrnisse, sêrenisse (“wounding, injury, distress, need”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

tenderness, rawness

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