sorrow
\ˈsɒrəʊ\
The verdict
“sorrow” is uncommon French (frequency #94,290 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #94,290
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tristesse, chagrin, désolation.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sorrow · sorrow · French
sorrow · rank #94,290 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #94,290
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH sophistique
Nearest frequency peer: sophistique (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « sorrow »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- soierie
soierie
5,714 corpus weight
- soissonnais
soissonnais
5,713 corpus weight
- sophistique
sophistique
5,712 corpus weight
- sorrow
sorrow
5,711 corpus weight
- souillent
souillent
5,710 corpus weight
- sourcilleux
sourcilleux
5,709 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « sorrow » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sorrow |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ˈsɒrəʊ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #94,290 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « sorrow » en français
Rare enough to double-check
sorrow is uncommon French at frequency #94,290 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ˈsɒrəʊ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Tristesse, chagrin, désolation.".
sorrow doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is sorrow, spelled S-O-R-R-O-W.
Definition
- 1Tristesse, chagrin, désolation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sorrow appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If tears dropped into a trunk were charms to preserve its owner from sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas Nickleby would have commenced his expedition under most happy auspices.
I drown myself in sorrow, as I look at what you've done But nothin' seems to change, the bad times stay the same And I can't run
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sorrow", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).