mourn
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To express sadness or sorrow for.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mawnIPA pronunciation (US)
mɔːn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
ambitransitive
To express sadness or sorrow for; to grieve over (especially a death).
To utter in a sorrowful manner.
To wear mourning.
noun
Sorrow, grief.
A ring fitted upon the head of a lance to prevent wounding an adversary in tilting.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To express sadness or sorrow for; to grieve over (especially a death).
Used this way, mourn is a reasonably familiar word carrying real weight of difficulty or hurt. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Strongly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Strongly negative / painful
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Mourn is emotionally heavy: it suggests deep or lasting feeling, not a passing mood, so it can overstate a small reaction.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use mourn
- “She is mourning her dead child.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A black band worn by a man (on the arm or hat) as a sign of mourning.
Of temperate regions.
Of temperate regions.
Wild dove of the United States having a mournful call.
A ring worn as a memorial to a dead person.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.