- sorrow
- sorrow n Sorrow, grief, heartache, heartbreak, anguish, woe, regret, though not close synonyms, share the idea of distress of mind. Sorrow is the most general term, implying a sense of loss or of guilt{
when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave— Shak.
}{virginity she thought she had parted with without sorrow, yet was surprised by torments of conscience— Malamud
}Grief denotes intense emotional suffering or poignant sorrow especially for some real and definite cause (compare GRIEVE){a stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, which finds no natural outlet— Coleridge
}{I have lain in prison .... Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn— Wilde
}but grief may also denote a more mundane distress of mind that is representative of the distress and trials of day-to-day life or often of a particular situation in life{he had a thankless job which gave him all of the grief of running a war and none of the glory— Time
}Heartache is used especially of persistent and deep sorrow that is slow to heal but that often gives little or no outward indication{the heartaches of a would-be author
}{the heartache of a hunted race— Zangwill
}{the dumb heartaches of those days— Churchill
}Heartbreak can imply a yet deeper and more crushing grief{the sorrow and the heartbreak which . . . abide in the homes of so many of our neighbors— Truman
}Anguish implies a distress of mind that is excruciating or torturing almost beyond bearing{anguish so great that human nature is driven by it from cover to cover, seeking refuge and finding none— Rose Macaulay
}{a mild perturbation . . . about as like real anguish as three little eruptions on your arm are like confluent smallpox— Montague
}{then came another sob, more violent than the first—a strangled gasp of anguish— Rolvaag
}Woe implies a deep or inconsolable misery or distress usually induced by grief{the suffering people whose woes he has not alleviated— W. P. Webb
}{outcast from God . . . condemned to waste eternal days in woe— Milton
}Regret seldom implies a sorrow that shows itself in tears or sobs or moans; usually it connotes such pain of mind as deep disappointment, fruitless longing, heartache, or spiritual anguish; consequently the term is applicable within a wide range that begins with the disappointment one feels, sometimes sin-cerely but sometimes merely as suggested by the language required by convention, in declining an invitation and ends with the pangs of remorse for something done or left undone or of hopeless repining for what can never be restored{with a sigh that might have been either of regret or relief— Wharton
}{in moments of regret we recognize that some of our judgments have been mistaken— Cohen
}{that expression of mildly cynical regret and acceptance that one often notices in people who have seen much of life, and experienced its hard and seamy side— Wolfe
}Analogous words: mourning, grieving (see GRIEVE): *distress, suffering, misery, agony: melancholy, dejection, *sadness, depressionAntonyms: joysorrow vb mourn, *grieve
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
