sad
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sadIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsæd
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.
adjective
Experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness
“Feeling sad because his dog had died.”
Feeling sorrow; sorrowful, mournful.
Appearing sorrowful.
Poor in quality, bad; shameful, deplorable; later, regrettable, poor.
Causing sorrow; lamentable.
Of colours: dark, deep; later, sombre, dull.
noun
The letter ص in the Arabic script.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness
Used this way, sad is a common word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
“Feeling sad because his dog had died.”
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sad
- “Feeling sad because his dog had died.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Relationships
Similar in idea, different in strength, tone or register.
Stronger
- heartbroken , Deep sadness after loss.
- devastated , Sadness that overwhelms you.
Softer
- unhappy , General, low-key sadness.
More formal
- melancholy , Literary, reflective sadness.
More casual
- down , Informal, mild sadness.
Opposite
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.