sad

Pronunciation

• IPA: /sæd/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sad, inherited from Old English sæd (“sated, full, weary of”),^[2][3] from Proto-Germanic *sathaz,^[2] the source also of Old Saxon sad, Dutch zat, Old High German sat (German satt), Old Norse saðr and Gothic saþs, all “sated”.^[2][3][4] Outside Germanic it is related to Latin satis “enough” and satur “sated”, Old Irish sāith “satiety”, Greek hádēn “to satiety” and Lithuanian sotùs “sated”,^[3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *sā- (“to satisfy”).^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Having had one's fill, sated, weary or tired of something: before 1000.^[5][3] Barnhart's first Middle English example is in Layamon's Brut, probably before 1200.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English and early Modern English the main senses were “settled, firm, steadfast” (about 1315), “strong” and “serious, grave” (about 1375), and “solid, dense”; these are obsolete except in dialect.^[2][5][4] The modern sense “sorrowful, unhappy” is evident by about 1300.^[2][3] It may have come through the idea of being “heavy” and so “weary”, or through “steadfast” and “serious” to “grave”.^[2] A parallel is fed up, of being unhappy through being too full of something.^[6] In this sense it replaced Old English unrot, the negative of rot “cheerful”.^[2] “Expressing sorrow” is from the mid-14th century,^[2] “dark-coloured” from the 16th century,^[4] and of bread or pastry, “heavy, not risen”, from the 17th.^[4] “Very bad, deplorable” is from the 1690s, often jocular,^[2] and the slang sense “pathetic, inferior” from 1899.^[2] Sad sack is from the 1920s, popularised in the Second World War.^[2] In dialect, sad bread is bread that has not risen.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1000 – sated, weary of.^[5][3]
• c. 1300 – sorrowful.^[2]
• c. 1315 – firm, steadfast.^[5]
• mid-14th century – expressing sorrow.^[2]
• 16th century – dark-coloured.^[4]
• 17th century – of bread, heavy.^[4]
• 1690s – deplorable, very bad.^[2]
• 1899 – pathetic, inferior.^[2]
• 1920s – sad sack.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Feeling or showing sorrow or unhappiness.
2. Causing sorrow or gloom; depressing: sad news.
3. Regrettable, deplorable: a sad state of affairs.
4. (informal) Pathetic or inadequate.
5. Of a colour, dark or sombre.

Word family

• sadly
• sadness
• oversad
• sadiron
• sad-faced
• unsad
• sad sack

Related words

• sadden
• satisfy
• satiate
• satire
• saturate
• sate

Usage notes

Sad is the most general of a group of words for unhappiness that includes melancholy, sorrowful, doleful and woebegone.^[8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin