different between sorrowful vs glum

English

Etymology

From Middle English sorweful, from Old English sorhful, sorgful (“full of care; anxious; sorrowful”), from Proto-Germanic *surgafullaz (“full of care; anxious”), equivalent to sorrow +? -ful. Cognate with Old High German sorgfol (“careful; anxious”), Norwegian sorgfull (“sorrowful”), Icelandic sorgfullur (“lamentable”).

Pronunciation

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /?s??o?f?l/, /?s???f?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s??o?f?l/, /?s???f?l/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s????f?l/, /?s???f?l/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?s????f?l/, /?s???f?l/
• Hyphenation: sor?row?ful

Adjective

sorrowful (comparative more sorrowful, superlative most sorrowful)

1. (of a person) exhibiting sorrow; dejected; distraught.
2. Producing sorrow; causing grief.

   sorrowful accident

   • 1900, L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter 23

     She threw her arms around the Lion's neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.

Synonyms

• mournful, lamentable, grievous
• See also Thesaurus:sad
• See also Thesaurus:lamentable

Translations

Further reading

• sorrowful in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• sorrowful in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

Probably from Middle Low German glum (“glum”), related to German dialectal glumm (“gloomy, troubled, turbid”). More at gloomy.

Adjective

glum (comparative glummer, superlative glummest)

1. despondent; moody; sullen
   • 1857-1859, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians

     I […] frighten people by my glum face.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English glomen, glommen, glomben, gloumben (“to frown, look sullen”), from *glom (“gloom”). More at gloom.

Verb

glum (third-person singular simple present glums, present participle glumming, simple past and past participle glummed)

1. (obsolete) To look sullen; to be of a sour countenance; to be glum.
   • 1509, Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure

     upon me he gan to loure and glum,
     Enforcing him so for to ryse withall,
     But that I shortly unto hem did cum,
     With his thre hedes he spytte all his venum

Noun

glum (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) sullenness
   • c. 1550, John Skelton, Colyn Cloute

     That they be deaf and dumb,
     And play silence and glum