sorrow

From Middle English sorow, sorwe, from Old English sorh, sorg, from Proto-Germanic *surgō (compare West Frisian soarch, Dutch zorg, German Sorge, Danish 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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sŏr'ō, IPA^(key): /ˈsɒɹəʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑɹoʊ/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈsɔɹoʊ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒɹəʊ

sorrow (countable and uncountable, plural sorrows)

1. (uncountable) unhappiness, woe
   • Rambler

     The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.

2. (countable) (usually in plural) An instance or cause of unhappiness.

   Parting is such sweet sorrow.

sorrow (third-person singular simple present sorrows, present participle sorrowing, simple past and past participle sorrowed)

1. (intransitive) To feel or express grief.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 424:

     ‘Sorrow not, sir,’ says he, ‘like those without hope.’

2. (transitive) To feel grief over; to mourn, regret.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     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.

• besorrow

• “sorrow” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "sorrow" in WordNet 3.0, Princeton University, 2006.