# sorrow
## English
### Alternative forms

* sorrowe (obsolete)

### Etymology

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.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sŏrʼō, IPA: /ˈsɒɹ.əʊ/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈsɑɹ.oʊ/
* (Canada) IPA: /ˈsɔɹ.oʊ/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒɹəʊ

### Noun

sorrow (countable and uncountable, plural sorrows)
* (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[ward] 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.
* (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.

#### Derived terms

* a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved
* China's Sorrow
* drown one's sorrows
* Our Lady of Sorrows
* shared sorrow is half sorrow
* sorrowful
* sorrowfully
* sorrowfulness
* sorrowless
* sorrowly
* sorrow-ridden
* sorrowsome
* tree of sorrow

#### Translations
### Verb

sorrow (third-person singular simple present sorrows, present participle sorrowing, simple past and past participle sorrowed)
* (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.
* (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[entine] 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.

#### Derived terms

* besorrow

#### Translations
### References

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