Sadness

How to spell sadness

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sadness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sadness mean?

1. nounThe state or feeling of being unhappy or sorrowful.

Sadness in a sentence

• A wave of sadness swept over her when the holiday ended.

• The film captures the quiet sadness of growing older.

Where does sadness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word combines the adjective 'sad' with the native English suffix '-ness', which turns a quality into a noun describing a state or condition. The root 'sad' comes from the Old English 'sæd', which originally meant 'sated', 'weary', or 'having had one's fill', rather than 'unhappy'. That earlier sense survives in relatives like the verb 'to sate' and the word 'satisfy', and it explains why heavy, dense bread is still sometimes called 'sad'. Over the medieval period the meaning drifted from 'full and heavy' to 'serious and grave', and finally to the modern sense of 'sorrowful' by the 1300s. The suffix '-ness' has been attached to adjectives since Old English to form abstract nouns, so 'sadness' is a thoroughly native formation. The spelling stays simple because both parts are short and regular, with just the single 'd' and the doubled 's' at the join to watch.

How the word is built

• sad (from Old English sæd: weary, sated)
• -ness (noun suffix meaning state or quality)