lamentable
adj/ləˈmɛn.tə.bəl/ · /ˈlæm.ən.tə.bəl/
Etymology From Middle English lamentable, from Middle French lamentable, from Latin lāmentābilis (“full of sorrow, mournful; deplorable”), from lāmentor (“lament”), from lāmenta (“wailing, weeping”). By surface analysis, lament + -able.
1
Causing sorrow, distress or regret; deplorable, pitiful or distressing.
- In what a lamentable caſe were I, If Nature had not giuen me wiſedomes lore?c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene iv:
- Moreover, in view of the lamentable present indecision of the Government in regard to electrification, the large-scale building of diesel power may prove to have been a farseeing move after all.1961 February, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Trains Illustrated, page 86:
- Synonyms
- atrabiliary, atrabilious, deplorable, depressing, distressing, grievous, heartbreaking, heartrending, miserable, lamentable, lachrymable, mournful, regrettable, rueful, sad, saddening, sorrowful, tragic, unhappy, upsetting, woebegone, woeful
- Antonyms
- cheerful
- Derived terms
- lamentability, lamentableness, lamentably, unlamentable
- Related terms
- lament, reportable, scornworthy, dirgeful, elegiac, elegiacal, threnodial, threnodic, sadden
- Hypernyms
- moving, unpleasant
- Hyponyms
- pitiful