Exact meaning of "Chagrin" [closed]
Chagrin is a French word, usually translated into English as "despondency, grief, broken-heartedness etc" (Concise Oxford Hachette, French Dictionary).
It has long been adopted into English, the following being some examples from the OED:
1656 T. Blount Glossographia Chagrin, cark, melancholy, heaviness, anxiety, anguish of mind; also a disease coming by melancholy. 1656
A. Cowley Pindaric Odes in Wks. (1710) I. 236 There are who all their Patients chagrin have, As if they took each morn worse Potions than they gave. 1677 W. Temple Let. in Wks. (1731) II. 426 His illness..derived, perhaps, from the Fatigue and Chagrin of his Business. a1680 S. Butler Genuine Remains (1759) I. 121 For, if he feel no Shagrin, or Remorse, His Forehead's shot-free, and he's ne'er the worse. 1714 Pope Rape of Lock (new ed.) iv. 34 Hear me, and touch Belinda with Chagrin; That single Act gives half the World the Spleen. 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 181. ⁋7 I hid myself..in the country, that my chagrin might fume away without observation. a1845
R. H. Barham Wedding-day in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 3rd Ser. 210
Each Saturday night when devoured by chagrin, he Sits listening to
However the etymology is interesting, since the word itself, it would appear, arose metaphorically (Fr chagrin ENG shagreen) in the seventeenth century from the word meaning:
1a. A species of untanned leather with a rough granular surface, prepared from the skin of the horse, ass, etc., or of the shark, seal, etc., and frequently dyed green. Also, an imitation of this. (OED).
According to the OED the sense development from "rough untanned leather" to "despondency and grief" occurred in French, rather than in English.
In strict answer to the question the "non-leather" meanings given to it in English per the OED are as follows:
- That which frets or worries the mind; fretting trouble, carking care, worry, anxiety; melancholy. Obsolete.
4 a. esp. Acute vexation, annoyance, or mortification, arising from disappointment, thwarting, or failure.
4b. in plural. Troubles; vexations.
No component of humiliation is included, neither in the Oxford French Hachette, nor in the OED. Though disappointment is clearly implied.