grief (n.)

early 13c., "hardship, suffering, pain, bodily affliction," from Old French grief "wrong, grievance, injustice, misfortune, calamity" (13c.), from grever "afflict, burden, oppress," from Latin gravare "make heavy; cause grief," from gravis "weighty" (from PIE root *gwere- (1) "heavy"). Meaning "mental pain, sorrow" is from c. 1300. Good grief as an exclamation of surprise, dismay, etc., is from 1912.

also from early 13c.

Entries linking to grief

grievance (n.)

c. 1300, "state of being aggrieved," from Old French grevance "harm, injury, misfortune; trouble, suffering, agony, sorrow," from grever "to harm, to burden, be harmful to" (see grief). In reference to a cause of such a condition, from late 15c.

grievous (adj.)

c. 1300, from Anglo-French grevous (Old French grevos) "heavy, large, weighty; hard, difficult, toilsome," from grief (see grief). Legal term grievous bodily harm attested from 1803.

*gwere- (1)

gwerə-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "heavy."

It forms all or part of: aggravate; aggravation; aggrieve; bar (n.4) "unit of pressure;" bariatric; baritone; barium; barometer; blitzkrieg; brig; brigade; brigand; brigantine; brio; brut; brute; charivari; gravamen; grave (adj.); gravid; gravimeter; gravitate; gravity; grief; grieve; kriegspiel; guru; hyperbaric; isobar; quern; sitzkrieg.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit guruh "heavy, weighty, venerable;" Greek baros "weight," barys "heavy in weight," often with the notion of "strength, force;" Latin gravis, "heavy, ponderous, burdensome, loaded; pregnant;" Old English cweorn "quern;" Gothic kaurus "heavy;" Lettish gruts "heavy."

Trends of grief

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/. Ngrams are probably unreliable.

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sorrow

Middle English sorwe, from Old English sorg "grief, regret, trouble, care, pain, anxiety," from Proto-Germanic *sorg- (source also of Old Saxon sorga, Old Norse sorg, Middle Dutch sorghe, Dutch zorg, Old High German soraga, German sorge, Gothic saurga), perhaps from PIE *swergh-

dolorous

c. 1400, "causing grief," also "causing pain, painful" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French doloros "painful; sorrowful..., wretched" (12c., Modern French douloureux) from Late Latin dolorosus "painful, sorrowful," from Latin dolor "pain, grief...Sense of "exciting or expressing grief or distress" is from mid-15c....

grieve

make worried or depressed; to make angry, enrage;" also "to be physically painful, cause discomfort;" c. 1300 as "cause grief...harass, oppress," from tonic stem of Old French grever "afflict, burden, oppress," from Latin gravare "make heavy; cause grief...

complaint

late 14c., "lamentation, expression of grief," also "grief, sorrow, anguish" itself; also "expression of dissatisfaction...

nepenthe

1590s, earlier nepenthes (1570s), "a drug or magic potion of Egypt mentioned in the 'Odyssey' as capable of banishing grief...or trouble from the mind," from Greek nēpenthēs, from nē- "no, not" (from PIE root *ne- "not") + penthos "pain, grief,"...

doleful

late 13c., with -ful, from Middle English dole "emotion of grief, sorrow, lamentation, mourning" (early 13c., now archaic...), from Old French doel (Modern French deuil), from Late Latin dolus "grief," from Latin dolere "suffer, grieve," which is...

plaint

lamentation, wailing, beating of the breast," from past-participle stem of plangere "to lament; to strike (the breast, in grief...The connecting notion in Latin probably is beating one's breast in grief....

heifer

"young cow that has not had a calf," Middle English heifer, from Old English heahfore (West Saxon); Northumbrian hehfaro, heffera (plural), "heifer," of unknown origin, not found outside English. The first element seems to be heah "high," which is common in Old English compounds

Russia

nation in Eastern Europe with a large possession in north Asia, 1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warrior

adventure

c. 1200, aventure, auenture "that which happens by chance, fortune, luck," from Old French aventure (11c.) "chance, accident, occurrence, event, happening," from Latin adventura (res) "(a thing) about to happen," from fem. of adventurus, future participle of advenire "to come to,

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updated on October 13, 2017

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