I once
used the word dolor in a reference letter, and the person for whom I was doing
the reference later shared with me that her interviewer said that my use of
that word was influential in her getting the job.
Dolor (spelled
dolour in the U.K.) means sorrow or grief. It is different from anhedonia,
which is the lack of ability to experience pleasure, although it can also refer
to the lack of pleasure. It is a psychological term. Cafard is a feeling of
severe depression, but is not a psychological term.
Dolor came
to English from the Latin word for pain, dolor,
in about 1300, through Middle English (where it was spelled dolour). It is the
source of a more common word, dolorous. It is probably most familiar as part of
the phrase via dolorosa, which is translated
as “way of sorrow” and refers to the path Jesus took through Jerusalem to the
site of the crucifixion. Dolorous (the adjective form of the noun dolor) has
been in use since about 1400, and came through Old French, where the word was doloros.
In case
your name is Dolores, don’t be sad. The name comes from the Spanish Maria de los Dolores, literally “Mary of
the Sorrows.” Prior to Vatican II the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows was
celebrated on September 15 (I guess I’m a month late with this post.) An
interesting devotion is to follow the seven sorrows in the life of the Virgin Mary.
The other
two words in today’s short post are from reading the letters of humorist S. J.
Perelman.
Anhedonia
was a word coined in 1897 by French Psychologist Theodule Ribot. He was looking
for a word to express the opposite of analgesia, and adapted the French word anhédonie for this purpose. The French
word comes from Greek, from an-,
which expresses negation, and hedone,
the Greek word for pleasure. Hedone
is also the source word for hedonist.
Cafard is
a very obscure word. Dictionary.com has only one reference dictionary that
provides a definition. Cafard comes from the French word kafar. According to Collins English Dictionary, kafar can mean either cockroach or
hypocrite.
Anhedonia
may lead to dolor, which may devolve to cafard.
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