mourn
Americanverb (used without object)
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mourns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
mourned,
past participle, past
-
mourning
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
mourns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
mourned,
past participle, past
-
mourning
present participle
-
to feel or express sorrow or grief over (misfortune, loss, or anything regretted); deplore.
-
to grieve or lament over (the dead).
-
to utter in a sorrowful manner.
verb
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to feel or express sadness for the death or loss of (someone or something)
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(intr) to observe the customs of mourning, as by wearing black
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(tr) to grieve over (loss or misfortune)
Synonym Usage
See grieve.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mournsimple
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mournssimple
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have mournedperfect
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has mournedperfect
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am mourningprogressive
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are mourningprogressive
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is mourningprogressive
-
have been mourningperfect progressive
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has been mourningperfect progressive
Past
-
mournedsimple
-
had mournedperfect
-
was mourningprogressive
-
were mourningprogressive
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had been mourningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mourn
First recorded before 900; Middle English mo(u)rnen, Old English murnan; cognate with Old High German mornēn, Old Norse morna, Gothic maurnan
Explanation
To mourn is to grieve for someone who has died, especially a loved one. One of the hardest experiences of childhood is when you mourn the loss of a beloved pet. You can also mourn for things that you've lost, not only pets and people who have died. If your local library branch is forced to close, you might mourn its loss, missing being able to walk there from your house. The Old English root word of mourn is murnan, which means not only to mourn, but also to be anxious. Related words include "mourner" and "mournful."
Vocabulary lists containing mourn
Instead of "Said": Words For Sad Speech
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"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 14–18
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Beowulf vocabulary
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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.
See Examples For:
Among them, “the lasting myth” that Clara “did not mourn her husband, and instead was an adulteress who destroyed scandalous love letters to the young man who was daily at her house.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Firefighters and police officers stood around the Michigan September 11 Memorial in Wentworth Park, where the tribute was built in a public space that has been used to mourn firefighters since 1934.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
She appealed to the army's leadership and President Yoweri Museveni to allow the family to mourn and bury Oyo in peace on Saturday.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
The gathering in memory of those who died in the demonstrations came as the Himalayan nation continues to mourn the vast loss of life from devastating floods two weeks ago.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
As the undertakers prepared to leave, one said to the other, “Well, that’s that. Almost a hundred years old and not a soul to mourn her.”
From "The Old Willis Place" by Mary Downing Hahn
The Sikh Coalition noted that the DHS post comes as the country mourns the 25th anniversary of 9/11, after which Sikhs were targeted for hate crimes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Ghana mourns its tallest man - a 'generous and popular giant'
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
“The noble art of ballyhoo, which had flourished so successfully in the nineteen-twenties, had lost something of its vigor,” he mourns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
And in “Bliss,” she mourns a relationship that could have been: “What hurts the most /Is we almost had it for a moment.”
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2026
“He mourns her something terrible. He is still in bed recovering. He’s weak, but he’ll survive. Thank the Lord the boys haven’t taken ill.”
From "Fever 1793" by Laurie Halse Anderson
The country's largest and most influential traditional institution, the Buganda Kingdom, said it mourned with the people of Tooro following the death of their monarch, labelling him a valuable figure to Uganda.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji was mourned on Tuesday with lowered flags and social media commemorations, ahead of a funeral for the reforming trailblazer who died last week at 97.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
Melissa Barrera and David Arquette, who starred alongside Panettiere in the “Scream” franchise, mourned their co-star on Instagram.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Mahalia Jackson died at only 60; at her funeral Belafonte mourned her as “the single most powerful black woman in America.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Dorothy’s older children had mourned the loss of their small-town freedom and the space that had come with the big house in Farmville.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
As federal investigators try to determine the cause of the crash, island residents are mourning the dead and confronting the trade-offs of life so isolated from the rest of Southern California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Community members are expected to gather Thursday evening for a vigil mourning a student who fell to his death at Benjamin Franklin High School.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Communities in several parts of Nepal are mourning loved ones.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Parton died last month at the age of 80, plunging her fans into mourning for a singer-songwriter, philanthropist and businesswoman whom many saw as a unifying figure in a divided America.
From Barron's ● Sep. 25, 2026
“You need a miracle. I don’t even physically need to eat … and here I am, mourning an empty bag of food.”
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
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.
