Library / English Dictionary

SADDEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make unhappy

Example:

The news of her death saddened me

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

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

affect; impress; move; strike (have an emotional or cognitive impact upon)

Cause:

sadden (come to feel sad)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sadden"):

weigh down; weigh on (be oppressive or disheartening to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The bad news will sadden him

The performance is likely to sadden Sue

Antonym:

gladden (make glad or happy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Come to feel sad

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

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

experience; feel (undergo an emotional sensation or be in a particular state of mind)

Sentence frames:

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

Antonym:

gladden (become glad or happy)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I hope you will be a great deal better, dear, but you must keep watch over your 'bosom enemy', as father calls it, or it may sadden, if not spoil your life.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

After seeing William to the last moment, Fanny walked back to the breakfast-room with a very saddened heart to grieve over the melancholy change; and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace, conceiving, perhaps, that the deserted chair of each young man might exercise her tender enthusiasm, and that the remaining cold pork bones and mustard in William's plate might but divide her feelings with the broken egg-shells in Mr. Crawford's.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Look wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me you hate me—tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals, no harsh words or blows were ever given them, no neglect ever saddened the heart of the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed, nursed and caressed with an affection which never failed.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then she begged him to be happy with somebody else, but always keep a little corner of his heart for his loving sister Jo. In a postscript she desired him not to tell Amy that Beth was worse, she was coming home in the spring and there was no need of saddening the remainder of her stay.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)