dolorous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dolorous
1375–1425; Middle English dolorous, dolerous < Anglo-French, Old French; see dolor, -ous
Explanation
Dolorous is not a woman's name (that's Dolores), it is an adjective that describes someone showing great sadness. If your friend Dolores is crying about a lost puppy, you could call her dolorous Dolores. Music written in a minor key can have a dolorous effect. It sounds really sad, and can make you feel the same way. Dolorous shares the same root with the word, condolence, an expression of sympathy with someone's sadness. Both of these words come from the Latin word for grief, dolor, which in current Spanish happens to mean pain.
Vocabulary lists containing dolorous
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards
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A Tale of Two Cities
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Race features prominently in “Butts,” including the disturbing, dolorous history of Sarah Baartman, a Khoe woman from South Africa whose ample backside became a freak-show spectacle in London in 1810.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 25, 2022
“Is it inflating the symphony of the lovable Belgian,” Gilman wondered in the New York Herald Tribune, “to rank it above the dolorous swan song of Tchaikovsky?”
From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2022
This, it is gradually transpiring, is a very characteristic Nighy interview quote, in that it is dolorous, painfully self-deprecating and makes rather heavy weather of the business of acting.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 12, 2017
Sleep-deprived and dolorous in nostalgia, I’d reverted to my old role as the gloomy one.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 22, 2016
They had rung the bells when King Robert died, she remembered, but this was different, no slow dolorous death knell but a joyful thunder.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
