Noun: chagrin
| Singular | chagrin |
| Plural | chagrins |
Sample Sentences
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much to the chagrin (of)
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[H]e alone knew how deep was the deluded man's chagrin at the failure of the little plot which he fancied was prospering finely. [1876, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 8, in Rose In Bloom:]
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“Mrs. Yule's chagrin and horror at what she called her son's base ingratitude knew no bounds ; at first it was even thought that she would never get over it.[…]” [1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:]
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I was like that, not in a state of fury but of sadness, when your letter arrived. I began to read it, with the pleasure one feels on hearing oneself attacked by somebody one likes. But when I reached the passage about the ‘sadism’ and ‘demonicalness’ of my persecution of you, my chagrin couldn’t hold out, and gaiety broke through. [1983, Robert de Montesquiou, translated by Terence Kilmartin, “From Robert de Montesquiou, around 8 July 1915”, in Philip Kolb, editor, Marcel Proust, Selected Letters, volume 3 (1910–1917), London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, pages 317–318:]
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And even though their numbers have been halved—that’s the unofficial tally given in one of the strategy sessions—everyone from Sansa to Daenerys to Varys is wondering who is going to rule over which pile of smoking ruins. That’s when the campaigning begins, much to Jon and Dany’s chagrin. [2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2021:]
Nouns inflected like chagrin
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From French chagrin (“sorrow”), from Middle French chagrin (“pain, affliction”) (compare Middle French chagriner, chagrigner (“to experience sorrow”), Old French chagrin (“painful, afflicted”)), probably derived from Old Northern French chagreiner, chagraigner (“to sadden”), of uncertain origin. Likely an enlargement of Old French greignier, graignier (“to cringe, growl, be sullen, be angry, grieve over”), from Old French graigne (“sadness, resentment, grief”), from graim (“sorrowful”), related to Old High German gram (“furious, gloomy, grieved”). The initial syllable is obscure. It may represent Old French chat (“cat”) to express the idea of "lamenting or yowling like cats" (compare German Katzenjammer (“distress, frustration, depression, chagrin”, literally “cat-wailing, cat-misery”), katzbalgen (“to cat-fight”)).
2. An alternative theory is that it came from a metaphorical use of French chagrin, (peau de) chagrain (“a type of roughened leather”), with the connection of roughness, though some dictionaries consider this to be a separate word derived from Old French peau de sagrin, from Ottoman Turkish صاغری (sağrı, “the rump of an animal, skin for tawing”). The alteration of initial s to ch is likely due to influence from chagrin meaning "sorrow". See: French Nouns '
chagrin', French Nouns '
chagrin'.
Verbs referencing "chagrin"
German Nouns
Gram.