chagrinchagrin

The story

From French chagrin (‘sorrow’), from Middle French chagrin (‘pain, affliction’) (compare Middle French chagriner, chagrigner (‘to experience sorrow’), Old French chagrin (‘painful, afflicted’)), probably derived from Old Northern French chagreiner, chagraigner (‘to sadden’), of uncertain origin.1uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Likely an enlargement of Old French greignier, graignier (‘to cringe, growl, be sullen, be angry, grieve over’), from Old French graigne (‘sadness, resentment, grief’), from graim (‘sorrowful’), related to Old High German gram (‘furious, gloomy, grieved’). The initial syllable is obscure.2uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. It may represent Old French chat (‘cat’) to express the idea of "lamenting or yowling like cats" (compare German Katzenjammer (“distress, frustration, depression, chagrin”, literally “cat-wailing, cat-misery”), katzbalgen (‘to cat-fight’)). An alternative theory is that it came from a metaphorical use of French chagrin, (peau de) chagrain (‘a type of roughened leather’), with the connection of roughness, though some dictionaries consider this to be a separate word derived from Old French peau de sagrin, from Ottoman Turkish صاغری (sağrı, “the rump of an animal, skin for tawing”).3disputed Scholars disagree here; the competing view is quoted as the source gives it.