Word.ws English Dictionary

dolorous

/ˈdɒləɹəs/

dolorous adjective: solemnly or ponderously sad.

Adjective

dolorous (comparative more dolorous, superlative most dolorous)

  1. Solemnly or ponderously sad.
    • Through dolorous despaire, which she conceyved,
      Into the Sea her selfe did headlong throw,
      Thinking to have her griefe by death bereaved.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • . . . Hell itself will pass away,
      And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.1645, John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, stanza 14

dolorous meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

dolorous in Tamil

பெருந்துயருற்ற, துக்கமடைந்த, பெரும் சோகமுற்ற, மிக வேதனையுற்ற

dolorous in Malayalam

doleful, sorrowful, mournful
ദുഃഖകരമായ, ദുരിതം നിറഞ്ഞ, ദുഃഖമനുഭവിക്കുന്ന, വിഷണ്ണനായ, ശോകാകുലം, ദുഃഖമയം

dolorous in Kannada

ಕೊರಗುವ, ನೋಯುವ

Examples of dolorous in a sentence

  • From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you . . . the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 30, in A Tale of Two Cities:
  • A sable wraith she was in the parkland, fading away into the dolorous crypt of winter.1922, Michael Arlen, “3/2/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
  • As World War II came to a close, the gaunt and dolorous child was liberated at yet another death camp, Buchenwald.2001 June 24, Stefan Kanfer, “Author, Teacher, Witness”, in Time:

Forms of dolorous

comparativemore dolorous
superlativemost dolorous
alternative formdolourous

Origin of dolorous

From Middle English dolorous, from Old French dolerous (modern French douloureux), from Late Latin dolōrōsus (“painful”), from Latin dolor. Doublet of dolorose.

Words formed from dolorous

Questions about dolorous

What does dolorous mean?
Dolorous means solemnly or ponderously sad.
What is dolorous in Tamil?
Dolorous in Tamil is பெருந்துயருற்ற, துக்கமடைந்த, பெரும் சோகமுற்ற. See Dolorous meaning in Tamil.
How do you use dolorous in a sentence?
From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you . . . the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.
What part of speech is dolorous?
Dolorous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dolorous?
Dolorous is pronounced /ˈdɒləɹəs/.

Words near dolorous in the dictionary

  1. dolorites
  2. dolorogenic
  3. dolorology
  4. dolorose
  5. doloroso
  6. dolorous
  7. dolorously
  8. dolorousness
  9. dolors
  10. dolos
  11. dolose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dolorous (page history and authors); dolorous (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dolorous (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dolorous (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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