chagrin

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“
One reason for his chagrin was that the Nuggets didn't tell him he was traded; he had to get the news from his agent.

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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 (50)

  • 'Twas thus at least that he expressed his thoughts to himself in his chagrin, as he took his place opposite to Mrs. Shortpointz at the seventh and last establishment now formed in the rooms The only idlers present were Miss Baker and Miss Todd. —  The Bertrams
  • To my chagrin, the duke laid his hand on the window and closed it. —  The Prisoner of Zenda
  • They went, and to my chagrin were delighted with the place, and learned to swim better than I could There was a man who went out every morning to bathe from a boat. —  Parkhurst Boys And Other Stories of School Life
  • His chagrin was apparent on his face Arcot laughed. —  Islands of Space
  • To my chagrin, my eyes fell almost instantly upon the Chevalier Le Moyne, wearing the very gorgeous uniform of aide to General Bonaparte. —  The Rose of Old St. Louis
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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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