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MOURNFUL
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Filled with or evoking sadness
Example:
mournful news
Synonyms:
doleful; mournful
Classified under:
Similar:
sad (experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness)
Derivation:
mournfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Expressing sorrow
Synonyms:
mournful; plaintive
Classified under:
Similar:
sorrowful (experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss)
Derivation:
mournfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)
Context examples:
The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
"It's beyond me, Matt," Scott answered, with a mournful shake of the head.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wild brother came no more; and though he listened through long vigils, the mournful howl was never raised.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
That the northland still drew him, they knew; for at night they sometimes heard him crying softly; and when the north wind blew and the bite of frost was in the air, a great restlessness would come upon him and he would lift a mournful lament which they knew to be the long wolf-howl.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
I saw unhappiness deeply impressed on his countenance, but he endeavoured to welcome me cheerfully; and, after we had exchanged our mournful greeting, would have introduced some other topic than that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed, Good God, papa!
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I have seen, he said, the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
