How to use mourning in a sentence

35 example sentences · noun

Mourning means the act of expressing or feeling sorrow or regret; lamentation. Example: “She was from a large family and had many friends, so the funeral was crowded with mourning survivors.”

Examples of mourning by meaning

nounSpecifically, the act of expressing or feeling sorrow regarding a death or loss.

A blind bearing the monogram G.V.T. is pulled down over the waiting room window as if still in mourning for the passing of the railway.1941 June, “Notes and News: The Derelict Glyn Valley Tramway”, in Railway Magazine, page 279

nounThe traditional clothes worn by those who mourn (in Western societies, typically coloured black).

I can't go out anywhere because it's too soon and I have to wear this disgusting mourning.’1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 88

More sentences with mourning

She was from a large family and had many friends, so the funeral was crowded with mourning survivors.From the entry survivor
The villagers are mourning their dead.From the entry dead
Why did they not only enjoin mourning but entreat the suppression of laughter?2007, Sammy Basu, “"A Little Discourse Pro & Con": Levelling Laughter and Its Puritan Criticism'”, in International Review of Social…. From the entry misogelast
Is the salesman's soft-shoe appropriate in a time of national mourning?2001 November 26, Adam Piore, “Red, White And What A Deal!”, in Newsweek, retrieved 01 May 2014. From the entry soft shoe
Cadres in Xiangyang Dian commune in Pingyu county ordered the culprits to be dressed in mourning.1996, Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, The Free Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 117. From the entry Pingyu
Scabiosa, often called mourning bride, pincushion flower, and sweet scabious, is an easily grown, old-fashioned, half-hardy annual.1950 October, S. L. Emsweller, “Scabiosa”, in Growing Annual Flowering Plants (U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin; no.…. From the entry pincushion
A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth.1911, Gene Stratton-Porter, The Harvester, page 46. From the entry skift
He will lead the country in mourning as the new King and head of state for 14 Commonwealth realms.2022 September 8, “Queen Elizabeth II has died”, in BBC News. From the entry queen consort
And I was mourning the future, too.2017, Gillian McAllister, Everything but the Truth, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 294. From the entry Christmas Eve
A woman in mourning speaks to the sachem.2008, Frances H. Kennedy, American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook, page 31. From the entry wetu
The enactment of such a restitutive fantasy serves the defense against the depressive affect about loss: the defense against mourning.2007, Leon Wurmser, Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me. From the entry restitutive fantasy
I conclude that the kaddish, in Rashi’s day, played only its traditional role, in and out of the context of mourning.1998, Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish, Knopf, →ISBN, page 54, →ISBN. From the entry unlachrymose
And if you don't back your chugwagon off a few yards your friends will be mourning for you.1906, Happy Days: A Paper for Young and Old - Issues 586-611, page 6. From the entry chugwagon
I’m remembering that time when there was a mourning warbler on that chip path 15 years ago and I remember the scarlet tanagers last week.2023 June 19, Morgan Jerkins, quoting Christian Cooper, “‘She doesn’t have the power’: Central Park birdwatcher Christian Cooper on why…. From the entry tanager
These vignettes often have the flavor of case studies, with interlocking themes related to the brittleness of the body and the complicated work of mourning.2018 August 14, Parul Sehgal, “Fables Leap Back and Forth Through Time in 'Flights'”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry brittleness
In a personal reflection on the epidemic, Allen Wright observes, “News of another death now comes with such frequency that my mourning is constant.2018, Darius Bost, Evidence of Being. From the entry spirit man
They spent a year in mourning.2017 May 13, Ashley Strickland, “Warned he would die by age 10, he just graduated college”, in CNN. From the entry mps
For anyone mourning its demise, which the company announced in a March blog post, those names sound awkward, like they're describing something else.2017 June 26, Colleen Rothman, “RIP Gchat”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group…. From the entry gchat
“As a nation, our head is bloodied but unbowed,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address, declaring three days of mourning.2013 September 24, Sudarsan Raghavan, “Kenyan officials say Nairobi mall siege is over”, in Washington Post, retrieved 30 Sep 2013. From the entry ashame
In previous chapters, I have tried to throw light on ritual violence from the vantage points of political history, mourning, and vowmaking.1996, Kenneth M. George, Showing Signs of Violence, page 137. From the entry vowmaking
And the chosen helper, this splash of colour, will it outblossom the greyness of discord, the black of mourning and the white of restrained emptiness?1993, Malcolm Green, The Golden Bomb: Phantastic German Expressionist Stories, page 146. From the entry outblossom
It was Melanie's black mourning bonnet and it did not fit Scarlett's head but she could not recall where she had put her own bonnet.1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter XXIII, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 382. From the entry bonnet
A picture of one mourning for her brother shows her hair all screwed up in little knobs with wilgie clay and fat.1902, May Vivienne, Travels in Western Australia […], page 56. From the entry wilgie
During the iddat, she did not sit with her head covered in a room, praying for her departed husband and observing the mandatory period of mourning.2025, Banu Mushtaq, “The Shroud”, in Deepa Bhasthi, transl., Heart Lamp, And Other Stories, page 170. From the entry iddat
Britain’s most senior police chief defied pressure to resign as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard.2021 March 14, Vikram Dodd, Aamna Mohdin, Aubrey Allegretti, “Cressida Dick refuses to quit over vigil policing and dismisses 'armchair…. From the entry manhandle
In both expectation and memory we find hope and mourning, traces of the absential in what is no longer and in what is yet to come.2013, Charles Bambach, Thinking the Poetic Measure of Justice: Hölderlin-Heidegger-Celan, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 267. From the entry absential
Indeed, in Rashi’s reading, the liturgy of mourning that the kaddish accompanied was itself not construed as an expression of mourning, even if it was expressed by mourners.1998, Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish, Knopf, →ISBN, page 54, →ISBN. From the entry unlachrymose
The word mourning is such an amorce, which prefigures the novel's denouement and also suggests that Jean's rejection of their daughter is tantamount to "killing" her.1994, Irène Assiba d' Almeida, Francophone African Women Writers, →ISBN, page 103. From the entry amorce
Students and youths in schools and colleges of Calcutta observed that day with mourning: they attended their institutions bare footed, protested with fasting and wore mourning badges.1994, Shodhak - Volume 23, Part 1, Issue 67 - Part 3, Issue 69, page 93. From the entry youthman
She wore a simple black silk dress, perhaps in deference to Tilly's death, though the note of mourning was jarred by flamboyant aquamarine ear-rings and too much rouge.1956, Delano Ames, chapter 4, in Crime out of Mind. From the entry aquamarine
His cheekbony face is pale grey, with a black wavy beard as in a frame of mourning, and upon it crawl, washing off the dirt, large drops of sweat.1928, Transition, numbers 13-14, page 262. From the entry cheekbony
She’s waiting to introduce Pence in a hotel ballroom in downtown Cincinnati and just finished taking selfies with fans who are still mourning her sudden departure from Fox last month.2018 August 22, Sarah Ellison, Dan Zak, “Kimberly Guilfoyle was once compared to Jackie Kennedy. Now she’s basically a Trump.”, in The…. From the entry MAGAland
It is indeed true that in recent years the business of taxidermying cats and dogs for mourning owners has blossomed into some form of art, especially in the United States.2012, Giovanni Aloi, Art and Animals. From the entry taxidermy

Meaning of mourning

noun The act of expressing or feeling sorrow or regret; lamentation.
noun Specifically, the act of expressing or feeling sorrow regarding a death or loss.
noun A social state or period that acknowledges a recent bereavement, which may involve social withdrawal, the observance of customs or rituals related to bereavement, etc.

Full definition of mourning

Questions about mourning in a sentence

How do you use mourning in a sentence?: Mourning is used as a noun. For example: “She was from a large family and had many friends, so the funeral was crowded with mourning survivors.”
What is a short sentence with mourning?: “The villagers are mourning their dead.”
What does mourning mean?: Mourning means the act of expressing or feeling sorrow or regret; lamentation.

Adapted from Wiktionary: mourning (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use mourning in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/mourning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.