lovelorn
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of lovelorn
Explanation
When you're lovelorn, you feel sad or hopeless about love. Sometimes people are lovelorn when the person they love doesn't love them back. You could be lovelorn because of unrequited love, loving someone who's unavailable or who simply doesn't feel the same way; or lovelorn from the loss of love. A lovelorn poet might write a melancholy sonnet, and a lovelorn teenager might listen to sad songs and cry in his room. The poet John Milton is often credited with coining lovelorn, a combination of love and lorn, a very old-fashioned way to say "lost" or "ruined."
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.
Maria, who was initially too lovelorn to suspect fraud, lost a year's worth of savings.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
To cope with her ambivalence, she penned a hazy, lovelorn track named “Abandoname.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Sedaka had difficulty delivering a successful sequel to his initial hit for RCA, so he constructed “Oh! Carol” to mimic the lovelorn yet sweet sounds filling the charts in 1959.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2026
This isn’t bro country; it’s songs for aching hearts, for dreamers, for the lovelorn, steeped in pop, rock, Tejano and Mariachi.
From Salon ● Dec. 26, 2025
This was very hard, but hardest of all when Echo, too, with all the other lovelorn maidens, loved Narcissus.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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.
