sorrow

Etymology

From Middle English sorow, sorwe, sorghe, sorȝe, from Old English sorg, sorh (“care, anxiety, sorrow, grief”), from Proto-West Germanic *sorgu, from Proto-Germanic *surgō (compare West Frisian soarch, Dutch zorg, German Sorge, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sorg), from Proto-Indo-European *swergʰ- (“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”) (compare Old Irish serg (“sickness”), Tocharian B sark (“sickness”), Lithuanian sirgti (“be sick”), Sanskrit सूर्क्षति (sū́rkṣati, “worry”). Despite the similarity in form and meaning, not historically related to sorry and sore.

noun

1. (uncountable) unhappiness, woe
   The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. August 28, 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 47
2. (countable) (usually in plural) An instance or cause of unhappiness.
   She had nursed all the children, including Sandro, to whom she was devoted, and my husband was just as fond of her. His going away to America was a great sorrow to her, and she always kept the sacred light burning on a little altar for Sandro all the time of his long absence. 1903, Maud Salvini, “Salvini as I Know Him”, in The Theatre, number 3, page 312
   Vaublanc, in San Domingo so sympathetic to the sorrows of labour in France, had to fly from Paris in August, 1792, to escape the wrath of the French workers. 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 14
   Parting is such sweet sorrow.

verb

1. (intransitive) To feel or express grief.
   ‘Sorrow not, sir,’ says he, ‘like those without hope.’ 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 424
2. (transitive) To feel grief over; to mourn, regret.