Library / English Dictionary

MOURN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feel sadness

Example:

She is mourning her dead child

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "mourn" is one way to...):

grieve; sorrow (feel grief)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

Sam cannot mourn Sue

Derivation:

mourner (a person who is feeling grief (as grieving over someone who has died))

mourning (state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Observe the customs of mourning after the death of a loved one

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "mourn" is one way to...):

celebrate; keep; observe (behave as expected during of holidays or rites)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue mourn

Derivation:

mourner (a person who is feeling grief (as grieving over someone who has died))

Credits

 Context examples: 

She touched her dress with her white, ring-covered fingers, as if to draw our attention to the fact that she was in the deepest mourning.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There must be three months, at least, of deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing more to wait for.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

NASA interrupted its live coverage of an International Space Station spacewalk to mourn Leonov's passing.

(Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov dies at age 85, Wikinews)

Bereavement is the period of grief and mourning after a death.

(Bereavement, NIH: National Cancer Institute)

A state of sadness, grief, and mourning after the loss of a loved one.

(Bereavement, NCI Dictionary)

Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he died too; and so all were dead.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some one very dear.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At night we could hear from amid the trees the long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beth mourned as for a departed kitten, and Meg refused to defend her pet.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

On the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was, we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after my father's death.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)