chagrin
/ʃəˈɡɹɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.86 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "much to the chagrin (of)"
- "[H]e alone knew how deep was the deluded man's chagrin at the failure of the little plot which he fancied was prospering finely."
- "“Mrs. Yule's chagrin and horror at what she called her son's base ingratitude knew no bounds ; at first it was even thought that she would never get over it.[…]”"
- "I was like that, not in a state of fury but of sadness, when your letter arrived. I began to read it, with the pleasure one feels on hearing oneself attacked by somebody one likes. But when I reached the passage about the ‘sadism’ and ‘demonicalness’ of my persecution of you, my chagrin couldn’t hold out, and gaiety broke through."
- "To the chagrin of Rose, one of the younger women, Ginger, has never even learned to make perogi, Polish dumplings."
- "And even though their numbers have been halved—that’s the unofficial tally given in one of the strategy sessions—everyone from Sansa to Daenerys to Varys is wondering who is going to rule over which pile of smoking ruins. That’s when the campaigning begins, much to Jon and Dany’s chagrin."
Etymology
From French chagrin (“sorrow”), from Middle French chagrin (“pain, affliction”) (compare Middle French chagriner, chagrigner (“to experience sorrow”), Old French chagrin (“painful, afflicted”)), probably derived from Old Northern French chagreiner, chagraigner (“to sadden”), of uncertain origin. Likely an enlargement of Old French greignier, graignier (“to cringe, growl, be sullen, be angry, grieve over”), from Old French graigne (“sadness, resentment, grief”), from graim (“sorrowful”), related to Old High German gram (“furious, gloomy, grieved”). The initial syllable is obscure. It may represent Old French chat (“cat”) to express the idea of "lamenting or yowling like cats" (compare German Katzenjammer (“distress, frustration, depression, chagrin”, literally “cat-wailing, cat-misery”), katzbalgen (“to cat-fight”)). An alternative theory is that it came from a metaphorical use of French chagrin, (peau de) chagrain (“a type of roughened leather”), with the connection of roughness, though some dictionaries consider this to be a separate word derived from Old French peau de sagrin, from Ottoman Turkish صاغری (sağrı, “the rump of an animal, skin for tawing”). The alteration of initial s to ch is likely due to influence from chagrin meaning "sorrow".
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʃəˈɡɹɪn/
- British English: /ˈʃaɡ.ɹɪn/
Usage
Inflected Forms
chagrins (plural)
chagrine (alternative, obsolete)
chargrin (alternative, misspelling)
chagrins (present, singular)
chagrining (participle, present)
chagrined (participle, past)
chagrined (past)
more chagrin (comparative)
most chagrin (superlative)