GRIEF • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Grief

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noun

Grief n.

Pain of mind on account of something in the past; mental suffering arising from any cause, as misfortune, loss of friends, misconduct of one's self or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness. "The mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy,... that she died for grief of it."

Cause of sorrow or pain; that which afficts or distresses; trial; grievance. "Be factious for redress of all these griefs."

Physical pain, or a cause of it; malady. (R.) "This grief (cancerous ulcers) hastened the end of that famous mathematician, Mr. Harriot."

To come to grief, to meet with calamity, accident, defeat, ruin, etc., causing grief; to turn out badly. (Colloq.)

Synonyms: Affiction; sorrow; distress; sadness; trial; grievance. Grief, Sorrow, Sadness. Sorrow is the generic term; grief is sorrow for some definite cause one which commenced, at least, in the past; sadness is applied to a permanent mood of the mind. Sorrow is transient in many cases; but the grief of a mother for the loss of a favorite child too often turns into habitual sadness. "Grief is sometimes considered as synonymous with sorrow; and in this case we speak of the transports of grief. At other times it expresses more silent, deep, and painful affections, such as are inspired by domestic calamities, particularly by the loss of friends and relatives, or by the distress, either of body or mind, experienced by those whom we love and value." See Affliction.

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Etymology of 'Grief'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Grief" Quotes from Famous Books

... So far triumphant faith: then the after-thought of the brave man who means to live his best life even if faith fail him. 'But even if none of these rewards came to them, still Virtue itself and the Joy and Glory of Virtue, and the Life that is subject to no grief and no master, would be enough to make blessed those who have set themselves to live in ...

— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... prescribe globules for grief, and to administer infinitesimally to a mind diseased. Practising what he prescribes, he swallows a globule of caustic whenever the sight of a distressed fellow-creature moves him to compassion,—a constitutional tendency which, he is at last convinced, admits of no ...

— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "why should Sir Paul look so triste? He has everything, apparently, that a man could wish to make him happy—health, wealth, and a success that can be the result only of his own efforts. And yet he is not happy. What hidden sorrow can he have—some grief, I am sure—that should keep him away from all companions? Every day he goes away alone. And I have seen him almost every night, coming back to the hotel, only to disappear in his rooms, where he must ...

— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... together one strong dominant note of fervent and flawless sincerity. Indeed, it is only in the more terrible dramas of the Elizabethan age that we can find any parallel to the Corsican voceri with their shrill intensity of passion, their awful frenzies of grief and hate. And yet, ardent as the feeling is, the form is nearly always beautiful. Now and then, in the poems of the extreme South one meets with a curious crudity of realism, but, as a rule, the sense of ...

— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... reason for such matches proving unhappy the fact that their participants look after 'the welfare of the future generation at the expense of the present,' and quotes the Spanish proverb, 'He who marries for love must live in grief.' From the point of view of the individual's interest, and not that of the future generation, it certainly seems a mistake to wed the object of intense desire unless there is also spiritual harmony, community ...

— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

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