dolorous

adjective

do·lor·ous ˈdō-lə-rəs

also

ˈdä-

: causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief

dolorously adverb

dolorousness noun

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The Painful History of Dolorous

"No medicine may prevail … till the same dolorous tooth be … plucked up by the roots." When dolorous first appeared around 1400, it was linked to physical pain—and appropriately so, since the word is a descendant of the Latin word dolor, meaning "pain" as well as "grief." (Today, dolor is also an English word meaning "sorrow.") When the British surgeon John Banister wrote the above quotation in 1578, dolorous could mean either "causing pain" or "distressful, sorrowful." "The death of the earl [was] dolorous to all Englishmen," the English historian Edward Hall had written a few decades earlier. The "causing pain" sense of dolorous coexisted with the "sorrowful" sense for centuries, but nowadays its use is rare.

Example Sentences

dolorous ballads of death and regret

Recent Examples on the Web Things had changed just enough to incorporate this kind of hard, dolorous realism.

Wesley Morris, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2020 Filled with desolate vistas, a feathered and furred menagerie, and multiple aperture-like windows, these fragments quickly establish a moody tone and over time become dolorous refrains.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2018 His Grammy supremacy, to the exclusion of Sheeran, shows that the dolorous guitarist no longer holds intrinsic sway over the smiling showman for the awards' purposes.

Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 28 Nov. 2017 His Grammy supremacy, to the exclusion of Sheeran, shows that the dolorous guitarist no longer holds intrinsic sway over the smiling showman for the awards' purposes.

Andrew Unterberger, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Nov. 2017 The mosaics portray Jesus and his human forebears, including Joseph and a dolorous Mother Mary.

Nasser Nasser, National Geographic, 27 May 2016 Did Affleck use up his store of dolorous winces in Manchester by the Sea?

Christian Lorentzen, New Republic, 5 July 2017 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dolorous.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.