Lonesome

How to spell lonesome

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lonesome

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lonesome mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling sad or melancholy because of being alone, or describing a place that is remote and deserted.

Lonesome in a sentence

• The empty house felt lonesome after the children moved away.

• The cabin sat on a lonesome stretch of road far from any town.

Where does lonesome come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a relatively young English creation, first recorded in the early seventeenth century. Its base is 'lone', which itself began life as a clipped or aphetic form of 'alone'; that older word came from the Old English phrase 'all ana', meaning literally 'all by oneself', where 'ana' meant 'one' and is a cousin of the modern word 'one'. To 'lone' was added the productive native English suffix '-some', which forms adjectives describing a quality, the same ending seen in 'tiresome', 'wholesome', and 'gladsome'. The result carries a slightly warmer, more poignant feeling than 'lonely', emphasising the emotional ache of solitude rather than the bare fact of being alone. The spelling trap lies in the silent 'e' of 'lone' surviving intact before 'some', so the middle is 'lone-some' and never 'lonsome'.

How the word is built

• lone (solitary, single)
• -some (suffix forming adjectives meaning 'characterised by')