Drerinesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a state of sadness, sorrow, or gloomy melancholy that weighs heavily on the spirit
2. Old English-style word for the bleak, dejected feeling of grief or dreariness that clouds a person's mood
3. Gloom and sorrowful dreariness, a heavy sadness of heart found in older English writing

Etymology: Before "dreary" meant gloomy, it meant bloody. Its Old English ancestor, "drēorig," came from "drēor," meaning blood or gore, and it described something gory or stained with blood. Over the centuries the sense moved from literal bloodshed toward sorrow and grief, and by the Middle English period "dreri" meant sad, sorrowful, or cheerless. "Drerinesse" was built on that adjective by adding the suffix "-nesse," the Middle English form of the modern "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a state or quality. It therefore named the condition of being dreary: gloom, sorrow, or melancholy. Like many Middle English abstract nouns, it was later replaced by the modern "dreariness," and it is now obsolete.