Word.ws English Dictionary

dolent

/ˈdəʊlənt/US/ˈdoʊlənt/

dolent adjective: sad, sorrowful.

Adjective

dolent (comparative more dolent, superlative most dolent)

  1. (archaic) Sad, sorrowful.
    • Poor wretch! who once hath paced that dolent city
      Shall pace it often, doomed beyond all pity,
      With horror ever deepening from the first.1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night
    • ‘Did you find them all, Uncle Van?’ she inquired, sighing, laying her dolent head on his shoulder.1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 148

Forms of dolent

comparativemore dolent
superlativemost dolent

Origin of dolent

From Middle English dolent, from Old French dolent, from Latin dolēns, present participle of doleō (“to grieve”).

Questions about dolent

What does dolent mean?
Dolent means sad, sorrowful.
What part of speech is dolent?
Dolent is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dolent?
Dolent is pronounced /ˈdəʊlənt/ (UK).

Words near dolent in the dictionary

  1. Doleman
  2. Dolemans
  3. Dolenc
  4. Dolence
  5. Dolenec
  6. dolent
  7. dolente
  8. Dolentz
  9. Dolenz
  10. dolerite
  11. dolerites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dolent (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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