Most people say they are sad, feeling down, or maybe depressed. Have you ever stopped to think about the multifarious words we use to convey such a seemingly simple idea as sadness? Merriam Webster lists
85 synonyms for sad, and that list is only the beginning of the ways the English language can be used to express this emotion. Among the more interesting and less often used are despondent, disconsolate, doleful, morose, elegiac, saturnine. Each of these words contains harsh consonants that imbue them with an austerity unfit for one of the most beautiful human emotions. Sadness exists at the core of everything beautiful in the world. It is the inspiration for the most beautiful songs. It is reflected in the most striking paintings. It is the emotion that most elicits compassion when reflected in another's face. Sad, certainly, is too simple, and most of its cousin words are too sinister in their syllables. Sadness deserves an appelation more apposite to its inherent beauty--a word like atrabilious, a word that rolls off the tongue like tears rolling down a cheek, a word that encapsulates the music of the heart in agony, a word that, like all great art, transmogrifies the grotesque into the sublime.
