sorrow
/ˈsɑɹoʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.73 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness."
- "The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment."
- "Beijing’s bureaucrats may claim they are preventing fires, but what they are really igniting is resentment, sorrow, and resistance. The flames they lit were consuming trust, dignity, and the fragile hope that religious freedom might one day be respected in Tibet."
- "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
- "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."
- "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."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsɑɹoʊ/
- British English: /ˈsɒɹəʊ/