sadness
Americannoun
-
the quality or state of being sad; sorrow.
It’s frustrating to know the sadness you’re feeling and not be able to help you.
-
an instance of sorrow.
How can you be so unaware of the sadnesses these children have experienced?
Etymology
Origin of sadness
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English sadnesse; sad ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )
Explanation
Someone who's blue feels sadness, like a little girl whose best friend has moved away. Use the noun sadness when you're talking about sorrow. Sadness may be the overwhelming mood at a funeral, for example, or an elderly man might describe his life's greatest sadness as letting his childhood sweetheart get away. An interesting thing about sadness is that its original meaning was "seriousness." It wasn't until the 1600s that it came to mean "full of sorrow."
Vocabulary lists containing sadness
Obama's speech at Connecticut vigil
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ness
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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.
Of all the things I saw in Ukraine, the most painful was the sadness in the eyes of Ukrainians who love America.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 7, 2026
"Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life," they said in a statement sent to AFP.
From Barron's • Jun. 4, 2026
Their reconciliation seems to owe to their sadness about the state of the world—discontents such as the artificial-intelligence revolution and the Gaza war trouble the background—and their nostalgia for the shared fancies of childhood.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026
The 45,000-square-foot exhibition brings together the work of more than 70 artists organized into emotional departments including grief, fear, hope, joy and sadness.
From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2026
His heart filled with the deepest sadness he had ever known.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
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.
