Etymology

sorrow

sor·row
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Today it means: unhappiness, woe Full definition →

Middle English sorwe ← Old English sorg ← Proto-West Germanic *sorgu
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sorrow · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*swergʰ-“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*surgō
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*sorgu
  4. Old English · inherited fromsorg
  5. Middle English · inherited fromsorwe
  6. English todaysorrow

From Middle English sorwe, sorow, sorewe, from Old English sorg, sorh (“care, anxiety, sorrow, grief”), from Proto-West Germanic *sorgu, from Proto-Germanic *surgō (compare West Frisian soarch, Dutch zorg, German Sorge, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sorg), from Proto-Indo-European *swergʰ- (“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”) (compare Old Irish serg (“sickness”), Tocharian B sark (“sickness”), Lithuanian sirgti (“be sick”), Sanskrit सूर्क्षति (sū́rkṣati, “worry”). Despite the similarity in form and meaning, not historically related to sorry and sore.

Sorrow · proper noun2

  1. German · calque ofSorge“sorrow”
  2. English todaySorrow

Probably a calque of German Sorge (“sorrow”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.