Sadden

//ˈsædən// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make sad or unhappy. transitive

    "It saddens me to think that I might have hurt someone."

  2. 2
    make unhappy wordnet
  3. 3
    To become sad or unhappy. intransitive, rare

    "He saddens, all the magic light ⁠Dies off at once from bower and hall, ⁠And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight: […]"

  4. 4
    come to feel sad wordnet
  5. 5
    To darken a color during dyeing. rare, transitive

    "Curve (E) is seen at a glance to represent green saddened down to its fifth shade, and reduced with white to its fourth tint."

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To render heavy, hard, or cohesive; to compress or thicken. transitive

    "Marle's binding and sadning of land being the great Prejudice it doth to Clay-lands."

Synonyms

All synonyms
aggrievebesorrowdarkendejectdepressengrieve

Example

More examples

"It will sadden Tony so much to hear that Donna is dead."

Etymology

From Middle English saddenen, equivalent to sad + -en.

Related phrases

sadden up

More for "sadden"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.