dolour

Definition

Anguish, grief, misery, or sorrow.

Etymology

From Middle English dolour (“physical pain, agony, suffering; painful disease; anguish, grief, misery, sorrow; grieving for sins, contrition; hardship, misery, trouble; cause of grief or suffering, affliction”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman dolour, Old French dolour, dolor, dulur (“pain”) (modern French douleur (“pain; distress”)), from Latin dolor (“ache, hurt, pain; anguish, grief, sorrow; anger, indignation, resentment”), from doleō (“to hurt, suffer physical pain; to deplore, grieve, lament”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *delh₁- (“to divide, split”)) + -or (suffix forming third-declension masculine abstract nouns). The English word is a doublet of dol.

Example Sentences

• "Who dyes the vtmoſt dolor doth abye, / But who that liues, is lefte to waile his loſſe: / So life is loſſe, and death felicity."
• "But for all this thou ſhalt haue as many Dolors for thy Daughters, as thou canſt tell in a yeare."
• "Gon[zalo]. When euery greefe is entertaind, / That's offer'd comes to th'entertainer. / Seb[astian]. A dollor. / Gon. Dolour comes to him indeed, you haue ſpoken truer then you purpos'd / Seb. You haue taken it wiſelier then I meant you ſhould."

Related Words