dolorous
English
WOTD – 2 August 2012
Alternative forms
- dolourous (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English dolorous, from Old French dolerous (modern French douloureux), from Late Latin dolōrōsus (“painful”), from Latin dolor. Doublet of dolorose.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈdɒləɹəs/, /ˈdoʊləɹəs/
Audio (UK) (file)
Adjective
dolorous (comparative more dolorous, superlative most dolorous)
- Solemnly or ponderously sad.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:
- Through dolorous despaire, which she conceyved,
Into the Sea her selfe did headlong throw,
Thinking to have her griefe by death bereaved.
- 1645, John Milton, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity", stanza 14:
- . . . Hell itself will pass away,
- And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
- 1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 30, in A Tale of Two Cities:
- From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you . . . the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/2/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- She turned and waved a hand to him, she cried a word, but he didn't hear it, it was a lost word. A sable wraith she was in the parkland, fading away into the dolorous crypt of winter.
- 2001 June 24, Stefan Kanfer, "Author, Teacher, Witness," Time:
- As World War II came to a close, the gaunt and dolorous child was liberated at yet another death camp, Buchenwald.
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Translations
solemnly or ponderously sad
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