Sorrowful

//ˈsɔɹoʊfəl// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    exhibiting sorrow; dejected; distraught; sad. (of a person)
  2. 2
    Producing sorrow; causing grief.

    "sorrowful accident"

Adjective
  1. 1
    experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
anguishedbitterlugubriousmournfulplaintivesad

Example

More examples

"She looks sorrowful and forlorn."

Etymology

From Middle English sorweful, from Old English sorhful, sorgful (“full of care; anxious; sorrowful”), from Proto-Germanic *surgafullaz (“full of care; anxious”), equivalent to sorrow + -ful. Cognate with Old High German sorgfol (“careful; anxious”), Norwegian sorgfull (“sorrowful”), Icelandic sorgfullur (“lamentable”).

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