MOURNING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mourning mean? 

• MOURNING (noun)
  The noun MOURNING has 2 senses:

1. state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one

2. the passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief

  Familiarity information: MOURNING used as a noun is rare.

• MOURNING (adjective)
  The adjective MOURNING has 1 sense:

1. sorrowful through loss or deprivation

  Familiarity information: MOURNING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOURNING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

bereavement; mourning

Hypernyms ("mourning" is a kind of...):

sadness; sorrow; sorrowfulness (the state of being sad)

Derivation:

mourn (feel sadness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

lamentation; mourning

Hypernyms ("mourning" is a kind of...):

activity (any specific behavior)

expression; manifestation; reflection; reflexion (expression without words)

• MOURNING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sorrowful through loss or deprivation

Synonyms:

bereaved; bereft; grief-stricken; grieving; mourning; sorrowing

Context example:

bereft of hope

Similar:

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

 Context examples 

Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In mourning, you see, just as our Mr Elliot must be.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Our house was the house of mourning.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

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)

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)

Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This reaction may include behavioral and physical problems, extreme mourning, and being unable to separate emotionally from the person who died.

(Grief therapy, NCI Dictionary)

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

(Bereavement, NIH: National Cancer Institute)