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sad

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Pronunciation

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
  • 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