Meaning of sadness in English

sadness

noun [ C or U ]

/ˈsæd.nəs/ us

/ˈsæd.nəs/

sadness noun [C or U] (FEELING)

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the feeling of being unhappy, especially because something bad has happened:

Her sadness at her grandfather's death was obvious.

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She spoke of her sadness over her father's death.
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Joan Walsh.
I knew that behind her smile was sadness.
Her eyes expressed deep sadness.
What comes across in his later poetry is a great sense of sadness.
Her face emanated sadness.
They shared each other's sadnesses as well as joys.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Sadness and regret

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sadness noun [C or U] (BAD THING)

something that is not satisfactory or pleasant and makes you feel shocked or angry:

One of the sadnesses of the current situation is the number of young people growing up without hope.

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sad

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"That is the sadness of it all," he added. "There are many residents of the city who are unaware - or, if aware, are not that concerned."
One of the sadnesses about the current crisis is that we seem to be jettisoning the wonderful inclusivity that is a characteristic of our church.
That would not only be a terrible sadness, it would be an educational disaster.
That he would commit such a shameless and blatant act is the ultimate sporting sadness.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Not good enough

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(Definition of sadness from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

sadness | American Dictionary

sadness

noun [ U ]

/ˈsæd·nəs/

Add to word list Add to word list

the feeling of being sad or unhappy:

There was a look of great sadness in his eyes.

(Definition of sadness from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of sadness

sadness

The scene ends with a close-up of his face, crumpling slowly with fatigue and sadness.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We therefore standardized and aggregated the two scores for each emotion to produce single indexes of teacherrepor ted happiness, anger, sadness, and fear expression.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Participants share their experiences, acknowledge vulnerability, sadness, and other emotional responses and provide mutual support.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Here the issue of race, justified or not, might have been nothing more than a cover for sadness.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Infants begin to smile, show excitement when presented with familiar faces, and display what is considered to be sadness when positive stimulus events are withdrawn.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More frequent experiences of sadness as nominated by peers also correlated with greater anger attribution bias.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We spoke about the sadness of saying goodbye to her children.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Women with unresolved loss also displayed significantly more sadness when discussing relationship problems with their husbands, a finding that was not specifically predicted.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

To set such a song is not easy, requiring a subtle blend of sadness and clarity.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

However, if persistent effort toward the goal does not produce adequate progress, then sadness/depression, an internalizing emotion, may result.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Here a hymn is said to evoke an affective world (a world of ' heart-rending sadness').

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These are typically, disbelief, numbness, shock, and immense sadness.

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For example, the expression of sadness is a stimulus for empathy and helping behavior.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

For example, if feeling a similar emotion would communicate solidarity (as when individuals empathically feel sadness), then empathy should be likely to occur.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

For example, while sadness is a central emotion - trait - bias linked to depression, other emotions are arguably as important.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of sadness?

Translations of sadness

in Chinese (Traditional)

悲傷, 遺憾，不快，悲哀…

Meaning of sadness in English

sadness noun [C or U] (FEELING)

sadness noun [C or U] (BAD THING)

sadness | American Dictionary

Examples of sadness

Translations of sadness

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