lūctus

1. Dolor (from θλᾶν, ἄθλιος?) denotes an inward feeling of grief, opp. to gaudium, Cic. Phil. xiii. 20. Suet. Cæs. 22, like ἄλγος; whereas tristitia, mœror, luctus, denote an utterance or external manifestation of this inward feeling. Tristitia and mœstitia are the natural and involuntary manifestation of it in the gestures of the body and in the countenance; luctus (ἀλυκτός), its artificial manifestation, designedly, and through the conventional signs of mourning, as cutting off the hair, mourning clothes, etc., at an appointed time, like πένθος. Mœror also serves for a heightened expression of dolor, and luctus of mœror and tristitia, as far as the manifestation is added to distinguish the feeling from it. Cic. Att. xii. 28. Mærorem minui; dolorem nec potui, nec si possem vellem. Phil. xi. 1. Magno in dolore sum, vel in mœrore potius, quem ex miserabili morte C. Trebonii accepimus. Plin. Ep. v. 9. Illud non triste solum, verum etiam luctuosum, quod Julius avitus decessit. Tac. Agr. 43. Finis vitæ ejus nobis luctuosus, amicis tristis; for relations only put on mourning. Tac. Ann. ii. 82. Quanquam nec insignibus lugentium abstinebant, altius animis mœrebant. Cic. Sext. 29, 39. Luctum nos hausimus majorem dolorem ille animi non minorem. 2. Tristitia (from ταρακτός?) denotes the expression of grief in a bad sense, as gloom, fretfulness, and ill-humor, opp. to hilaratus, Cic. Att. xii. 40. Fin. v. 30. Cæcil. ap. Gell. xv. 9. Quintil. xi. 3, 67, 72, 79, 151; whereas mœstitia (from μύρω) denotes grief, as deserving of commiseration, as affliction, when a most just grief gives a tone of sadness, in opp. to lætus, Sall. Cat. f. Tac. Ann. i. 28. Tristitia is more an affair of reflection; mœstitia, of feeling. The tristis, like the truculentus, is known by his forbidding look, his wrinkled forehead, the contraction of his eyebrows; the mœstus, like the afflictus, by his lack-lustre eyes and dejected look. Tac. Hist. i. 82. Rarus per vias populus mœsta plebs; dejecti in terram militum vultus, ac plus tristitæ quam pœnitentiæ. Cic. Mur. 24, 49. Tristem ipsum, mœstos amicos: and Orat. 22, 74. (iii. 234.)