Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Deep mental anguish, as that arising from bereavement, or an instance of this. synonym: regret.
  • noun A source or cause of deep mental anguish.
  • noun Annoyance or frustration, or an instance of this.
  • noun Trouble or difficulty, or an instance of this.
  • noun Informal Criticism or rude talk.
  • noun Archaic A grievance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Regretful or remorseful sorrow; mental distress or misery caused by something done or suffered by one's self or others; affliction; woe.
  • noun Cause of sorrow or pain; that which afflicts or distresses; grievance.
  • noun Bodily pain; physical suffering.
  • noun Synonyms Sorrow, Wretchedness, etc. (see affliction); bitterness, heartache, anguish, agony, woe.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Pain of mind on account of something in the past; mental suffering arising from any cause, as misfortune, loss of friends, misconduct of one's self or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness.
  • noun Cause of sorrow or pain; that which afficts or distresses; trial; grievance.
  • noun rare Physical pain, or a cause of it; malady.
  • noun [Colloq.] to meet with calamity, accident, defeat, ruin, etc., causing grief; to turn out badly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable Cause or instance of sorrow or pain; that which afflicts or distresses; trial.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun something that causes great unhappiness
  • noun intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one (especially by death)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from grever, to harm, aggrieve; see grieve.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English greef, gref, from Old French grief ("grave, heavy, grievous, sad"), from Latin gravis ("heavy, grievous, sad.")

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Examples

  • III. ii.43 (306, 6) [For life I prize it As I weigh grief which I would spare] _Life_ is to me now only _grief, _ and as such only is considered by me, I would therefore willingly dismiss it.

    Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Only pray let her give way to her grief; much crying, even if it makes her cough for the moment, can do her no real harm, but stifling and swallowing _grief_ (which she

    The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861 Queen of Great Britain Victoria 1860

  • She bucks two trends that have come to annoy me in current fiction -- jumping around with the timeline to seem arty while really just making the reader struggle to keep things straight and what I dubbed "grief porn" in an essay last summer -- the kind of emotional manipulation that employs tragedy to keep women readers in particular sucked in.

    Nancy Doyle Palmer: This Summer's Perfect State of Wonder Nancy Doyle Palmer 2011

  • She bucks two trends that have come to annoy me in current fiction -- jumping around with the timeline to seem arty while really just making the reader struggle to keep things straight and what I dubbed "grief porn" in an essay last summer -- the kind of emotional manipulation that employs tragedy to keep women readers in particular sucked in.

    Nancy Doyle Palmer: This Summer's Perfect State of Wonder Nancy Doyle Palmer 2011

  • Your grief is your business; you deal with it how you need to.

    It’s My Story And I’ll Cry If I Want To | Her Bad Mother 2009

  • If your not from New York your grief is almost dismissed as being lesser in intensity.

    Think Progress » Coulter on 9/11 Widows: ‘I Have Never Seen People Enjoying their Husbands’ Death So Much’ 2006

  • Immediately we send what we call grief counselors to the schools to help the friends and neighbors of the children.

    CNN Transcript Feb 3, 2007 2007

  • Those who make a living convincing audiences that they speak to the dead are examples of what I call grief trade workers.

    In Defense Of Trust James Randi 2006

  • And then there's losing a child, which, by all accounts, is so horrendous that what we know as grief barely applies.

    Latest stories 2010

  • "The people we've got to be really mindful of are Father Cheney and his parishioners because they're what I call grief-stricken you know, they have worked for years and years and years for this project to happen and we were on the cusp as they say for it to happen," said Bishop Boland.

    News for WSAV 2009

  • Bereavement expert Kenneth Doka calls this 'disenfranchised grief'. He coined the term in 1989 to capture this feeling of loss that no one seems to understand and that you don't feel entitled to. "Disenfranchised grief refers to a loss that's not openly acknowledged, socially mourned or publicly supported," he says.

    Bulky Cameras, Meet The Lens-less FlatCam Kavitha Cardoza 2021

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