sorrow

Reading level: medium

Estimated CEFR level: A2 — Elementary

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun an emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement
  2. noun sadness associated with some wrong done or some disappointment
  3. noun something that causes great unhappiness

Etymology

From Middle English sorwe, sorow, sorewe, 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.

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