chagrin

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KING: And I remember an unusual night here at the CNN studios when we were doing a show during the O.J. Simpson trial and scheduled on the show much to our chagrin was the judge who made that decision.

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event: To her chagrin, the party ended just as she arrived.
  2. transitive verb To cause to feel chagrin; mortify or discomfit: He was chagrined at the poor sales of his book. See Synonyms at embarrass.
  3. Word History
    The ultimate etymology of the word chagrin, which comes directly to us from French, is considered uncertain by many etymologists. At one time chagrin was thought to be the same word as shagreen, "a leather or skin with a rough surface,” derived from French chagrin. The reasoning was that in French the word for this rough material, which was used to smooth and polish things, was extended to the notion of troubles that fret and annoy a person. It was later decided, however, that the sense "rough leather” and the sense "sorrow” each belonged to a different French word chagrin. Other etymologists have offered an alternative explanation, suggesting that the French word chagrin, "sorrow,” is a loan translation of the German word Katzenjammer, "a hangover from drinking.” A loan translation is a type of borrowing from another language in which the elements of a foreign word, as in Katzen, "cats,” and Jammer, "distress, seediness,” are assumed to be translated literally by corresponding elements in another language, in this case, chat, "cat,” and grigner, "to grimace.” The actual etymology is less colorful, with the word probably going back to a Germanic word, *gramī, meaning "sorrow, trouble.” Chagrin is first recorded in English in 1656 in the now obsolete sense "anxiety, melancholy.”

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Examples

  • KING: And I remember an unusual night here at the CNN studios when we were doing a show during the O.J. Simpson trial and scheduled on the show much to our chagrin was the judge who made that decision. —  CNN Transcript Feb 4, 2006
  • You will see that my chagrin is a part of me, and that believing progress to be a dream does not depend on me. —  The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters
  • Stronger than his chagrin was his pity for her--the poor, unconscious victim of his mad hallucination. —  The Grain of Dust
  • Stronger than his chagrin was his pity for her -- the poor, unconscious victim of his mad hallucination. —  The Grain of Dust
  • In the mean time, his chagrin was appeased by a new project. —  Life of George Washington — Volume 01
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, possibly from dialectal French chagraigner, to distress, become gloomy, from Old French graim, sorrowful, gloomy, of Germanic origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. French chagrin, a kind of leather, shagreen: see chagrin and shagreen.
  2. Formerly sometimes shagreen, a spelling now confined to the other sense; from French chagrin, grief, sorrow, formerly (Old French chagrin) vexation, melancholy; prob. a metaphorical use of chagrin, a kind of roughened leather (chagrin, shagreen), sometimes used (it is supposed) for rasping wood, and hence taken as a type of corroding care. Cf. Italian dial. (Genoese) sagriná, gnaw, sagrináse, consume one's self with anger; Italian limare, file, gnaw, fret. Similar turns of thought are seen in similar uses of English corrode, gnaw, nag, fret.
  3. from French chagriner; from the noun.
 

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/ʃəˈgrɪnɑr ʃæˈgrin/
by American Heritage
by johndane06

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