grief

Etymology

From Middle English greef, gref, from Old French grief (“grave, heavy, grievous, sad”), from Latin gravis (“heavy, grievous, sad”). Doublet of grave.

noun

1. Suffering, hardship.
   The neighbour's teenage give me grief every time they see me.
2. Emotional pain, generally arising from misfortune, significant personal loss, bereavement, misconduct of oneself or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness.
   She was worn out from so much grief.
   The betrayal caused Jeff grief.
3. (countable) Cause or instance of sorrow or pain; that which afflicts or distresses; trial.

verb

1. (online gaming) To deliberately harass and annoy or cause grief to other players of a game in order to interfere with their enjoyment of it; especially, to do this as one’s primary activity in the game, and especially by exploiting game mechanics without using cheats to do so.
   While ban and his pals stand squarely in this tradition, they also stand for something new: the rise of organized griefing, grounded in online message-board communities and thick with in-jokes, code words, taboos, and an increasingly articulate sense of purpose. No longer just an isolated pathology, griefing has developed a full-fledged culture. 2008-01-18, Julian Dibbell, “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World”, in Wired