a. (sb.) [a. F. lamentable or ad. L. lāmentābil-is, f. lāmentā-rī to LAMENT: see -ABLE.]
1. Of persons, their appearance, actions, voice, song, etc.: Full of or expressing sorrow or grief; 1. mournful, doleful. Now rare or arch.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 327. In whiche place … lamentable voices be herde ofte tymes.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., IV. lxxv. 53. The lamentable request made into hym by the sayde Ambassade.
1502. Will of Auncell (Somerset Ho.). An Image of or blessid lady of grace as lamentable as can be devised.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, II. vi. [v.] 38. I see stand me befor,… maist lamentable [L. mæstissimus] Hector, With large fluide of teris.
1529. Act 21 Hen. VIII., c. 16 § 11. Our true and faithful Subjects … exhibited unto us a lamentable Bill of Complaint.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. IV., 9. With a lamentable voyce and a sorowfull countenance.
1600. Hakluyt, Voy. (1810), III. 380. Dancing and singing in a lamentable tune.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Elegiographer, a writer of Elegies, or lamentable verses.
1725. Pope, Odyss., X. 611. Where … Cocytus’ lamentable waters spread.
1739. Ld. Castledurrow, in Swift’s Lett. (1766), II. 261. A lamentable Hymn to Death, from a lover, ascribed to his mistress.
1848. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre (1873), 2. With ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
1851. Hawthorne, Snow Image, Old News (1879), 154. The lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, xi. 370. With this wail the thin lamentable voice of the desiccated rhetorician ceases.
2. That is to be lamented; such as to call for lamentation, sorrow or grief; pitiable, deplorable.
c. 1430. Lydg., Minor P., 145. That owgly careyn lamentable.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, ii. 16. It is a greuous thyng to me to passe ouer so lyghtly the lamentable circumstaunces … in soo fewe wordis.
c. 1500. Assembly of Ladies, 686. The case itself is inly lamentable.
1545. Brinklow, Compl., xxiii. (1874), 58. What a lamentable thing is this, that men shuld be dryuyn from the Gospel of Christ.
1587. Collingwood, in Border Papers (1894), I. 259. The … lamentable estayt of this ruinose and waysted cuntre.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. iv. 42. They … strowe with flowres the lamentable beare.
1639. Woodall, Wks., Pref. (1653), 18. The most lamentable diseases of poor men require the most care of the Surgeon.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 617. Thir lamentable lot.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 509, ¶ 2. A lamentable change from that simplicity of manners.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiii. III. 331. Another Macdonald, destined to a lamentable and horrible end.
b. In jocular or trivial use: ‘Pitiful, despicable’ (J.); wretchedly bad. Cf. deplorable.
1676. Stillingfl., Def. Disc. Rom. Idol., 537 (J.). This learned Bishop to make out the disparity between the Heathens and them flyes to this lamentable refuge.
1876. Stedman, Victorian Poets, iii. 65. But when he [Landor] … attempted to regulate the orthography of our language the result was something lamentable.
† B. sb. pl. Laments, complainings. Obs.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VIII. 5. Come, come, good Norton,… you are up again with your lamentables!
Hence Lamentableness.
1589. Rider, Eng.-Lat. Dict., Lamentablenes, elegia.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Lamentableness, wofulness, pitiableness.
