Also 7 shagrin, 8 chagreen. [a. F. chagrin (1) rough skin, shagreen, (2) displeasure, ill-humor, etc. The sense-development took place in French, where the word meaning ‘rough and granular skin employed to rub, polish, file,’ became by metaphor the expression for gnawing trouble (Littré). In English the word in the original material sense is now written SHAGREEN, q.v.
In the sense shagreen It. has zigrino, Venetian sagrin (Diez); ad. Turkish çāghrī çaghrī, saghrī, rump of a horse, hence the prepared skin of this part, shagreen.]
† I. = SHAGREEN.
† 1. A species of skin or leather with a rough surface: now commonly spelt SHAGREEN, q.v.
1678. Phillips, Chagrin,… also the rough skin of a Fish, of which Watch Cases and handles of Knives are made.
1697. trans. C’tess. D’Aunoy’s Trav. (1706), 151. It is cover’d with Chagrin, and naild with Gold Nails.
1766. J. Ellis, in Phil. Trans., LVI. 190. The skin, which is black, is full of small scales, resembling chagrin.
1842. Prichard, Nat. Hist. Man, 92. It is of the tuberculated skin of the wild ass that the Levantines make the grained leather termed chagrin.
† 2. fig. A shagreen-like surface. Obs.
a. 1734. North, Exam., II. v. ¶ 129. 394. Thoughts which … had made their skin run into a Chagrin.
II. Of the mind or feelings. (Often referred to, c. 1700, as an affected and frenchified term.)
[Cotgr. (1611), explains F. chagrin, carke, melancholie, care, thought; perplexitie, heauinesse, anxietie, pensiuenesse, vexation, or anguish of mind; also a disease or maladie: especially, such a one as comes by melancholie.]
† 3. That which frets or worries the mind; fretting trouble, carking care, worry, anxiety; melancholy. Obs.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Chagrin, cark, melancholy, heaviness, anxiety, anguish of mind; also a disease coming by melancholy.
1656. Cowley, Pind. Odes, Wks. 1710, I. 236. There are who all their Patients chagrin have, As if they took each morn worse Potions than they gave.
1677. Temple, Lett., Wks. 1731, II. 426. His illness … derived, perhaps, from the Fatigue and Chagrin of his Business.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 121.
| For, if he feel no Shagrin, or Remorse, | |
| His Forehead’s shot-free, and he’s ne’er the worse. |
1712. Pope, Rape Lock, IV. 77. Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin;—That single act gives half the world the spleen.
1751. Johnson, Rambl., No. 181, ¶ 7. I hid myself … in the country, that my chagrin might fume away without observation.
1840–7. Barham, Ingol. Leg. (1877), 259. Each Saturday night when, devour’d by chagrin, he sits listening to singers.
4. esp. Acute vexation, annoyance or mortification, arising from disappointment, thwarting or failure.
1716–8. Pope, in Lady M. W. Montague’s Lett., II. xli. 4. If there be any circumstance of chagrin in the occasion … I must … feel a part of it.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 474/1. Marius died, with the chagrin of an unfortunate wretch, who had not obtained what he wanted.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 152. Think of my chagrin at being obliged to decline the host of invitations that daily overwhelm me, merely for want of a pair of breeches!
1876. E. Jenkins, Blot on Queen’s H., 4. They managed … to … conceal their chagrin if they felt any.
b. in plural. Troubles; vexations.
a. 1715–6. Pope, Lett. to E. Blount, 20 March (1735), II. 176 (L.). I grieve with the Old, for so many additional Inconveniences, and Chagrins, more than their small Remain of Life seem’d destin’d to undergo.
1771. Nicholls, in Corr. w. Gray (1843), 148. If I met with any chagrins, I comforted myself that I had a treasure at home.
1824. Miss Ferrier, Inher., I. xlviii. 333. Mrs. Major had her own petty chagrins.
1887. Morley, Crit. Misc., III. 154. Whom no vexations, chagrins, nor perversities of fate could daunt from fighting the battle out.
