Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Showing, expressing, or feeling sorrow or unhappiness.
  • adjective Causing sorrow or gloom; depressing.
  • adjective Deplorable or inadequate; sorry.
  • adjective Dark-hued; somber.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Strongly; stiffly.
  • Soberly; prudently; discreetly.
  • Closely; firmly: as, to lie sad.
  • To make firm.
  • To strengthen; establish; confirm.
  • To sadden; make sorrowful; grieve.
  • Full; having had one's fill; sated; surfeited; hence, satiated; wearied; tired; sick.
  • Heavy; weighty; ponderous.
  • Firm; solid; fixed.
  • Close; compact; hard; stiff; not light or soft.
  • Heavy; soggy; doughy; that has not risen well: as, sad bread.
  • Weighty; important; momentous.
  • Strong; stout: said of a person or an animal.
  • Settled; fixed; resolute.
  • Steadfast; constant; trusty; faithful.
  • Sober; serious; grave; sedate; discreet; responsible; wise; sage.
  • Sorrowful; melancholy; mournful; dejected.
  • Expressing or marked by sorrow or melancholy.
  • Having the external appearance of sorrow; gloomy; downcast: as, a sad countenance.
  • Distressing; grievous; disastrous: as, a sad accident; a sad disappointment.
  • Troublesome; trying; bad; wicked: sometimes used jocularly: as, a sad grumbler; a sad rogue.
  • Dark; somber; sober; quiet: applied to color: as, a sad brown.
  • = Syn. 11 and
  • Depressed, cheerless, desponding, disconsolate.
  • Dire, deplorable.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To make sorrowful; to sadden.
  • adjective obsolete Sated; satisfied; weary; tired.
  • adjective Obs., except in a few phrases; as, sad bread. Heavy; weighty; ponderous; close; hard.
  • adjective Dull; grave; dark; somber; -- said of colors.
  • adjective obsolete Serious; grave; sober; steadfast; not light or frivolous.
  • adjective Affected with grief or unhappiness; cast down with affliction; downcast; gloomy; mournful.
  • adjective Afflictive; calamitous; causing sorrow.
  • adjective colloq. Hence, bad; naughty; troublesome; wicked.
  • adjective [Scot. & Local, U.S.] heavy bread.
  • noun Acron. Seasonal affective disorder.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete Sated, having had one's fill; satisfied, weary.
  • adjective obsolete Steadfast, valiant.
  • adjective obsolete Dignified, serious, grave.
  • adjective Of colours: dark, deep; later, sombre, dull.
  • adjective Feeling sorrow; sorrowful, mournful.
  • adjective Appearing sorrowful.
  • adjective Causing sorrow; lamentable.
  • adjective Poor in quality, bad; shameful, deplorable; later, regrettable, poor.
  • adjective slang Unfashionable; socially inadequate or undesirable.
  • adjective dialect soggy (to refer to pastries).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective bad; unfortunate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, weary, sorrowful, from Old English sæd, sated, weary; see sā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English sad, from Old English sæd ("sated with, weary of, satiated, filled, full"), from Proto-Germanic *sadaz (“sated, satisfied”), from Proto-Indo-European *sā- (“to satiate, satisfy”). Cognate with Dutch zat ("sated, drunk"), German satt ("well-fed, full"), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌸𐍃 (saþs, "full, satisfied"), Latin satur ("well-fed, sated"). Related to sate.

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  • Seasonal Affective Disorder. An acronym which started life as a joke but now is being taken seriously. Seriously that is only by pseudo-scientists, quacks and other charlatans.

    July 19, 2008

  • So hopelessly behind on comments that I will never, ever catch up and don't have time even to try. Missing my Wordnik buddies. :-(

    May 10, 2011

  • I say we record all of our comments and send them to you in a file, so you can listen on your iPod whenever you want.

    May 11, 2011