tearful

Etymology

It is formed from English tear¹ + -ful.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The base noun is from Middle English ter, also tere, from Old English tēar (“tear, drop”), earlier teahor and tæhher,^[3][5][7] from Proto-Germanic *tagr-, the source of German Zähre, from Proto-Indo-European *dakru-, also the source of Latin lacrima.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Full of tears, weeping: before 1586, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, "with tearefull eyes & a pittifull countenance".^[2] Etymonline gives the 1580s and Merriam-Webster Unabridged about 1586.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word first described eyes and people full of tears.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "weeping; full of tears", quoting Shakespeare's "tearful eyes".^[8] The sense "causing tears; mournful" followed about 1611 in Chapman's translation of the Iliad.^[2][4] The OED queries it as perhaps obsolete,^[2] but newer dictionaries keep it, as of something sad or emotional enough to bring on tears.^[9][7][5]

Timeline

• before 1586 – full of tears, weeping, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[2]
• c. 1611 – causing tears, mournful, in Chapman's Iliads.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Weeping, or inclined to cry; full of tears: a tearful toddler.^[9][5][2]
2. Accompanied by tears: a tearful goodbye at the station.^[5][7]
3. Causing tears; sad, mournful or moving: a tearful film.^[9][7][2]

Word family

• tearfully
• tearfulness

Related words

• tear

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press