borrowedsorrow
/ˈbɒrəʊdˌsɒrəʊ/nounVerified NewCondolence, apology, or sympathy assembled from machine-written language and sent as one's own.
The sympathy note the chatbot drafted for a colleague, the apology that arrives polished and slightly generic — the sentiment is real, the sentences are borrowed. Recipients increasingly recognize the grain of it, leaving the sender in a strange position: comfort that reads as templated.
Etym. — *borrowed* + *sorrow*, with the internal rhyme doing the work: grief in secondhand clothes. Pairs with pregrieved.
Novelty check: NEW · checked 2026-11-08
review evidence: wordstoreview/review-batch-3-03-tech.md
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Method: Editorial batch review — per-word exact-form web search (WebSearch/Tavily) per docs/REVIEW-criteria.md §2