Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make sorrowful; sadden.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To make sad.

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

  • verb transitive, obsolete To make sad, to upset.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French (and modern) French contrister, from Latin contristare, from con- + tristis ‘sad’.

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Examples

  • As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the priests that carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose he was in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God! must I again contrist myself?

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the priests that carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose he was in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God! must I again contrist myself?

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the priests that carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose he was in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God! must I again contrist myself?

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

  • I have no desire; and besides, if I had — I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject — with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, ‘twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account — and therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up — and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment. —

    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 2003

  • I have no desire; and besides, if I had — I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject — with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, ‘twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account — and therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up — and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment. —

    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 2003

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