Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Marked by or exhibiting sorrow, grief, or pain.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Exciting or expressing sorrow, grief, or distress; dismal; mournful: as, a dolorous object; a dolorous region; dolorous sighs.
- Painful; giving pain.
- Synonyms See list under doleful.
Wiktionary
- adj. Solemnly or ponderously sad.
GNU Webster's 1913
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing sorrow
Etymologies
- From Old French dolerous (modern French douloureux), from Latin dolōrōsus ("painful"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French doloros, from Late Latin dolōrōsus, from dolor, dolor; see dolor. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Don't you? it can't be helped then!" replied he in dolorous resignation: then, with a peculiar half smile, he added, "But never mind; I imagine the squire has more to apologize for than I," and left the cottage.”
“These words uttered, she descends to earth in all her terrors, and calls dolorous Allecto from the home of the Fatal Sisters in nether gloom, whose delight is in woeful wars, in wrath and treachery and evil feuds: hateful to [327-360] lord Pluto himself, hateful and horrible to her hell-born sisters; into so many faces does she turn, so savage the guise of each, so thick and black bristles she with vipers.”
“His expression was dolorous, I guess because he’d wanted to get rid of me.”
“But, Nabokov being Nabokov, what clinches it for me is that dismal haze — which could equally be described as a dolorous haze or you see where I’m going with this as a Dolores Haze.”
“He found a kind of dolorous amusement in seeing now much more at home all the youngsters about him seemed than he.”
The Best Short Stories of 1920 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“Even if it's a sad thing, you want to get the essence of the most dolorous phrases and connect them in some way, and so in that way try to perfect something.”
The Guardian: On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
“If you removed the ultimate object – for one woman, a novel, for another, a home so perfectly created and maintained that nothing rank or dolorous could ever take root there – you had, essentially, the same effort.”
“One of these, the parlor, gay with an ingrain carpet and dolorous with a funeral card and a death-picture of one of her numerous departed babes, was kept strictly for company.”
“In Puccini's dolorous "Crisantemi," the sense of world-weary detachment was not completely apt, the suffering held at a distance.”
The Washington Post: Music review: The Quatuor Debussy with Katherine Chi at Library of Congress
“You almost feel bad for them, those dolorous Madonnas who look as though their babies have just passed wind but they're trying to hold it together for the picture.”
The Washington Post: Brilliant, Google Art Project! The only bad thing about museums is museums!
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dolorous’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
-
Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 330 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
-
Talking About Words
The favorite words of Talking Tyrants
dolorous, parsimonious, apotemnophilia, odalisque, tuberoinfundibular, morass, ostentatious, sybaritic, vermilion, onomatopoeia, eschatology, teleology and 49 more...
-
GRE
GRE words from Princeton Review guide, ETS GRE Book from 2010 (for revised test), New Yorker/NY Times articles.
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 124 more...
-
See list under
Being a list of words which have the phrase "see list under" somewhere in their definitions.
Also, further proof that the folks who put together the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia w...aggravate, exaggerate, abash, affliction, ponder, abject, dolorous, spelt, See list under, diabolic, apathy
-
Character traits
Falstaffian, drumble, despond, grotesque, élan, anile, feal, smart aleck, phat, blowsy, haver, hoary and 18 more...
-
Summers Vocabulary # 2
jejune, ingratiate, congruent, cryptic, beleaguer, tangential, impregnable, predilection, surly, dolorous, untoward, renege
-
big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
-
♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
-
Vocab [General]
No particular specification to this list.
philology, etymology, atavistic, proscribe, inchoate, vulgate, abstruse, agnate, anodize, anthropomorphic, assiduous, augur and 89 more...
-
All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
tatterdemalion, panopticon, idioglossia, hypnagogue, hypnopomp, defenestration, anacoluthon, scofflaw, affront, edifying, palimpsest, naufrage and 476 more...
-
Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
-
Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dolorous.

blueruin "Come on home now! All my bones are dolorous with vines." --Joanna Newsom Dec 1, 2008
yarb Are you receiving me through steel
dolorous Inter-City lines?
- Peter Reading, Juncture, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974 Jun 22, 2008
reesetee Definitely disgraceful! Aug 22, 2007
oroboros "Dolorous, Delores deplored Dorothy's departing deportment." Aug 22, 2007