Dictionary

dolorous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈdɒləɹəs/
• /ˈdoʊləɹəs/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English dolorous, from Old French dolerous (modern French douloureux), from Late Latin dolōrōsus (“painful”), from Latin dolor. Doublet of dolorose.

Meanings

1. Solemnly or ponderously sad.
   • The dolorous effects of the second world war on train services, and its protracted legacies of over-age equipment and shortages of material for replacement, are too fresh in memory to require recapitulation here; […]. 1957 July 14, D. S. M. Barrie, “Sixty Years of British Express Trains”, in Railway Magazine, pages 455-456:
   • 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. 1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 30, in A Tale of Two Cities:
   • 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. 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/2/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
   • . . . Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. 1645, John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, stanza 14:
   • As World War II came to a close, the gaunt and dolorous child was liberated at yet another death camp, Buchenwald. 2001 June 24, Stefan Kanfer, “Author, Teacher, Witness”, in Time:
   • Through dolorous despaire, which she conceyved, Into the Sea her selfe did headlong throw, Thinking to have her griefe by death bereaved. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

dolorously · dolorousness · undolorous

Relateds

ouch!

Translations (17)

ru гру́стный (solemnly or ponderously sad) · bg скръбен (solemnly or ponderously sad) · nl mismoedig (solemnly or ponderously sad) · nl droefgeestig (solemnly or ponderously sad) · nl mistroostig (solemnly or ponderously sad) · pl boleściwy (solemnly or ponderously sad) · ru ско́рбный (solemnly or ponderously sad) · hy վշտահար (solemnly or ponderously sad) · ka საცოდავი (solemnly or ponderously sad) · es doloroso (solemnly or ponderously sad) · gd brònach (solemnly or ponderously sad) · ru уны́лый (solemnly or ponderously sad) · bg печален (solemnly or ponderously sad) · ru страда́ющий (solemnly or ponderously sad) · hy թախծոտ (solemnly or ponderously sad) · ru печа́льный (solemnly or ponderously sad) · nl doloreus (solemnly or ponderously sad)