mourning
UK[ˈmɔːnɪŋ]US[ˈmɔːrnɪŋ]
n
The feeling of being sad that you have and show because somebody has died.
n
The black clothes that are worn in some countries as an expression of sadness about somebody's death.
Etymology
The word 'mourning' originates from the Old English 'murnan', a verb meaning 'to grieve, be anxious, care about'. This Old English term is traced back to the Proto-Germanic root 'murnan-', which carried the sense of 'to remember sorrowfully'. This Germanic root is further linked to the Proto-Indo-European root '(s)mer-', meaning 'to remember', which is also the ancestor of words like 'memory' and 'memorial'. The semantic journey from 'to remember' to 'to grieve' is a poignant and logical one, as grief is intrinsically tied to the act of remembering a lost person or thing. Over time, the verbal noun form 'mourning' solidified to specifically denote the act, feeling, or outward signs of grief, especially following a death.
Analysis
This is a simplex word derived from the Old English verb 'murnan', meaning 'to feel or express sorrow, grieve'. The '-ing' suffix here is not a separate, productive morpheme in the modern word but an integral part of its formation as a verbal noun (gerund) from the Old English period.
Examples
The family is in deep mourning after their loss.
She wore a black dress as a symbol of mourning.
The official period of national mourning lasted for seven days.