Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of poignancy
First recorded in 1680–90; poign(ant) + -ancy
Explanation
The noun poignancy refers to something that is deeply touching, especially something that brings forth strong emotions like sympathy, sadness, or sorrow. The poignancy of the movie may bring you to tears. Bring tissues. Lots of tissues. The noun poignancy is from the Old French word poindre, which means "to prick or sting." Related words include the adjective poignant. Similar words include pathos and bathos, although both of these words often imply a sort artificiality that poignancy does not. Pathos can imply a trick by the writer or speaker to produce sympathy or sadness and bathos can imply artificial sentimentality, so poignancy is often the preferred word when genuine emotion is involved.
Vocabulary lists containing poignancy
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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:
Plenty of films measure the lamentable distance between real life and Hollywood fantasy, but there’s not enough poignancy or creative exuberance in these stilted dance sequences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
The gag-filled comedy overflows with wackiness, as is customary for “Looney Tunes,” but also, and perhaps less expectedly, poignancy galore.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
There is a poignancy that Sir Billy departed soon after her.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
But it takes a series of self-reflexive turns that are overelaborate in their conception and slightly inert in their execution, rendering the movie’s poignancy more theoretical than fully felt.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
All she knew was that, crossed with shadow, their family life took on a poignancy sharper than she could stand.
From "Typical American" by Gish Jen
He's looking forward to next season, where he plans to delve more deeply in the character, probing "her pain and poignancies."
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2015
Steele-Perkins is good at little poignancies, the tell-tale details that give the game away, that point out our common fallibilities.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 16, 2010
What is left is an abundant supply of jokes together with jarring poignancies.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the process it displays the grandest theatrical techniques, affirms the Tightness of love and friendship, revives pleasures and poignancies that have all but vanished from modern narrative art.
From Time Magazine Archive
They will cut themselves with sweet and bitter poignancies of laughter and tears, when the sun shines upon wet forests in the green earth.
From Among Famous Books by John Kelman
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
