People who feel and show sadness, especially at a funeral or after someone's death.
From Old English 'murnan' meaning 'to care for' or 'to mourn,' related to 'mourn.' The word has been used since at least the 1200s to describe people expressing grief, originally with the sense of caring deeply about someone's loss.
Different cultures have completely different mourning rituals—sitting shiva in Judaism, wearing white in some Asian cultures, wailing in others—but all humans mourn. This shared grief ceremony across cultures suggests mourning isn't learned; it's something deep in how we're wired to handle loss.
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