lachrymose
- suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful.
- given to shedding tears readily; tearful.
Origin of lachrymose
Examples from the Web for lachrymose
Historical Examples
But women must beware of sham emotion and lachrymose sentimentality.
The Truth About WomanC. Gasquoine Hartley
The gills are notched, rather distant, pallid, then cinnamon; lachrymose.
The Mushroom, Edible and OtherwiseM. E. Hard
Then it had cried out once, and so remained ever lachrymose and in agony.
The Fifth Queen CrownedFord Madox Ford
His tone had never been so lachrymose, nor his face so full of woe.
The BertramsAnthony Trollope
The too lachrymose Madonna in terra-cotta, 256, already ushers in the decadence.
The Story of ParisThomas Okey
lachrymose
- given to weeping; tearful
- mournful; sad
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for lachrymose
adj.
1660s, "tear-like," from Latin lacrimosus "tearful, sorrowful, weeping," also "causing tears, lamentable," from lacrima "tear," a dialect-altered borrowing of Greek dakryma "tear," from dakryein "to shed tears," from dakry "tear," from PIE *dakru-/*draku- (see tear (n.)). Meaning "given to tears, tearful" is first attested 1727; meaning "of a mournful character" is from 1822. The -d- to -l- alteration in Latin is the so-called "Sabine -L-," cf. Latin olere "smell," from root of odor, and Ulixes, the Latin form of Greek Odysseus. The Medieval Latin practice of writing -ch- for -c- before Latin -r- also altered anchor, pulchritude, sepulchre. The -y- is pedantic, from belief in a Greek origin. Middle English had lacrymable "tearful" (mid-15c.).