MOURNFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mournful mean? 

• MOURNFUL (adjective)
  The adjective MOURNFUL has 2 senses:

1. expressing sorrow

2. filled with or evoking sadness

  Familiarity information: MOURNFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOURNFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Expressing sorrow

Synonyms:

mournful; plaintive

Similar:

sorrowful (experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss)

Derivation:

mournfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Filled with or evoking sadness

Synonyms:

doleful; mournful

Context example:

mournful news

Similar:

sad (experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness)

Derivation:

mournfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)

 Context examples 

It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mournful, the first howl he had ever uttered.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in the distance.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Jorindel turned to see the reason, and beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended with a mournful jug, jug.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

"Poor Michael," was the mournful reply.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)