Meaning & use
lonely
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Unhappy because you have no company or feel cut off from other people.
Grammar: Describes a person's feeling: she felt lonely. Different from alone, which only says nobody else is there.
Patterns
- feel lonely
- lonely without someone
She felt lonely in the new city where she knew nobody.
He grew lonely after his friends moved away.
Many older people are lonely, even in a crowded town.
adjectivebefore a noun
Describing a place or road that is far from other people and rarely visited.
Grammar: Used before nouns such as road, house or stretch.
A lonely farmhouse stood at the end of the valley.
They drove along a lonely road for hours.
The lighthouse keeper lived on a lonely rock.
adjectivebefore a noun
Causing a feeling of isolation or lack of company.
Grammar: Describes an experience or situation, not a person: a lonely weekend.
Moving abroad can be a lonely experience at first.
It was a lonely job, working nights by himself.
Winter evenings felt long and lonely.
Word forms
| comparative | lonelier |
|---|---|
| superlative | loneliest |
Common combinations
- feel lonely
- I sometimes feel lonely on Sunday evenings.
- lonely childhood
- He had a lonely childhood on a remote farm.
- lonely hearts
- The newspaper had a lonely hearts column.
- lonely place
- The cabin was a lonely place in winter.
- desperately lonely
- She was desperately lonely after the move.
- lonely road
- A lonely road ran through the desert.
Synonyms and how they differ
- isolated
- Isolated stresses being physically or socially separated and does not need to involve sad feelings.
- lonesome
- Lonesome is more old-fashioned and often has a gentle, poetic or folk-song flavor.
- forlorn
- Forlorn adds a sense of being abandoned and hopeless, so it is stronger and more literary.
- solitary
- Solitary describes being alone, often by choice, and is not necessarily unhappy.
Opposites
Word family
- loneliness noun
- the feeling of being lonely
- lonelily adverb
- in a lonely manner, very rare
- lone adjective
- single or standing by itself
- loner noun
- a person who prefers to be alone
- lonesome adjective
- sad from being alone, more old-fashioned
Commonly confused: lonely or alone?
lonely vs alone
Alone means without other people and carries no feeling; you can be alone and perfectly happy, but lonely means you are unhappy about it.
Practice
Maria enjoys spending Saturdays by herself, so she is alone but not ____.
Choose one answer.
Lonely names the sad feeling of lacking company, which is the contrast with alone. Lone and solo describe being by oneself without suggesting feelings, and single is about relationship status.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lonely”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.