poignancy
/ˈpɔɪnjənsi
/noun [mass noun]
The quality of evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret; pathos: the pregnancy has a special poignancy for her family...
- What gives this wretched episode extra poignancy is the fact that the bandit commander's life had been saved by the Red Cross a year earlier.
- It may be a history lesson but it is sure to portray with poignancy the humour, hurt, heartbreak and pain that they didn't teach us in the classroom.
- The album isn't bad because it isn't distressing or painful, which one would expect from poignancy.
Synonyms
pathos, sadness, pitifulness, piteousness, sorrow, mournfulness, wretchedness, misery, bitterness, pain, painfulness, distress, tragedy
Derivatives
poignance
- Historical, psychological and spiritual themes embroider the simple ghost story and contribute poignance and depth to what would amount to little more than a campfire tale in terms of plot.
- And while part of the point and poignance of the dialogues is their dramatic structure, that doesn't actually make the dialogues successful as plays.
- And it's difficult to say, really, why her case seizes our attention and sense of poignance in ways that keep it before our attention.