sad: [OE] Originally, to feel sad was to feel that one had had ‘enough’. For the word comes ultimately from the same Indo-European base that produced English satisfy and saturate. By the time it reached English (via a prehistoric Germanic *sathaz) ‘enough’ had already become extended to ‘weary’, and the modern sense ‘unhappy’ emerged in the 14th century.
The original notion of ‘sufficiency’ has now died out in the case of sad, but it survives in the case of sated [17], an alteration (probably under the influence of satiate) of the past participle of an earlier verb sade ‘satiate’, which was derived from sad. => sated, satiate, satisfy, saturate
sad (adj.)
Old English sæd "sated, full, having had one's fill (of food, drink, fighting, etc.), weary of," from Proto-Germanic *sathaz (cognates: Old Norse saðr, Middle Dutch sat, Dutch zad, Old High German sat, German satt, Gothic saþs "satiated, sated, full"), from PIE *seto- (cognates: Latin satis "enough, sufficient," Greek hadros "thick, bulky," Old Church Slavonic sytu, Lithuanian sotus "satiated," Old Irish saith "satiety," sathach "sated"), from root *sa- "to satisfy" (cognates: Sanskrit a-sinvan "insatiable").
Sense development passed through the meaning "heavy, ponderous" (i.e. "full" mentally or physically), and "weary, tired of" before emerging c. 1300 as "unhappy." An alternative course would be through the common Middle English sense of "steadfast, firmly established, fixed" (as in sad-ware "tough pewter vessels") and "serious" to "grave." In the main modern sense, it replaced Old English unrot, negative of rot "cheerful, glad."
Meaning "very bad" is from 1690s. Slang sense of "inferior, pathetic" is from 1899; sad sack is 1920s, popularized by World War II armed forces (specifically by cartoon character invented by Sgt. George Baker, 1942, and published in U.S. Armed Forces magazine "Yank"), probably a euphemistic shortening of common military slang phrase sad sack of shit.
实用例句
1. This condition is called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD for short.
这种病情叫做季节性情感失调症，或简称SAD。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Guy Powell, defending, told magistrates: "It's a sad and disturbing case."
盖伊·鲍威尔在进行辩护时对地方法官说道：“这是一件非常不幸、令人不安的案子。”
来自柯林斯例句
3. I'm sad about my toys getting burned in the fire.
我的玩具在这场火中付之一炬，这令我很难过。
来自柯林斯例句
4. He died five or six years ago I'm sad to say.
很遗憾，他在五六年前去世了。
来自柯林斯例句
5. How can anyone look sad at an occasion like this?
