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The word abject emphasizes a very bad situation or quality, thereby making it even worse.
A bereaved person is someone whose close friend or relative has recently died.
The adjective blithe indicates that someone does something casually or in a carefree fashion without much concern for the end result.
Someone in a buoyant mood is in good spirits.
A convivial atmosphere or occasion is friendly, pleasant, cheerful, and relaxed.
If you are despondent, you are extremely unhappy because you are in an unpleasant situation that you do not think will improve.
Something that is dolorous, such as music or news, causes mental pain and sorrow because it itself is full of grief and sorrow.
Someone who is dour is serious, stubborn, and unfriendly.
Someone who is ebullient is filled with enthusiasm, very happy, and extremely excited about something.
An effervescent individual is lively, very happy, and enthusiastic.
If you exult, you show great pleasure and excitement, especially about something you have achieved.
If someone is lugubrious, they are looking very sad or gloomy.
If you are melancholy, you look and feel sad.
Someone who is morose is unhappy, bad-tempered, and unwilling to talk very much.
If you are pensive, you are deeply thoughtful, often in a sad and/or serious way.
A plaintive sound or voice expresses sadness.
Plangent sounds are loud and tend to suggest sadness.
If you are sanguine about a situation, especially a difficult one, you are confident and cheerful that everything will work out the way you want it to.
Someone who is saturnine is looking miserable and sad, sometimes in a threatening or unfriendly way.
Someone who is woebegone is very sad and filled with grief.
Adj.
poignant
POIN-yuhnt
Context
The diaries of survivors of the 1918 influenza epidemic serve as a poignant and touching reminder of the great losses suffered in this horror. The poignant, distressing descriptions of entire families falling sick and sometimes dying within days of one another remind us of how lucky we are to have modern medicine available. What I find particularly poignant and heartbreaking are the brief entries listing the names of some of the people who got this terrible illness, and the sometimes fatal symptoms that arose because of it.
Quiz:Try again!
When is something poignant?
When it inspires deep feeling, sadness, or pity.
When it creates a lasting feeling of accomplishment.
When it is described in a few carefully chosen words.
GnatPoint The year we finally arrived at the summit after our very long and difficult hike, we were disappointed to see that it was a point filled with swarming stinging gnats, which made the summit unbearable to stand upon; this poignantgnatpoint upset us greatly because we had spent so much time and effort getting there!
Examples
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
— Logan Pearsall Smith
This past weekend, I was given a very poignant reminder that there are strangers out there and that we can, indeed, be touched by their kindness.
—
Men's Health
'The Science of Sleep,' Gondry’s third feature, follows the under-loved 'Human Nature' and the much more successful, melancholy and poignant 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.'
—
Los Angeles Times
There was a poignant scene at the hotel on Wednesday night when Ramos told his teammates that he was retiring from the national team.
—
Sports Illustrated
Being poignant is “being in a state or condition of being pierced or pricked” by emotion.
Word Theater
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy A poignant story about this alien's life.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!