forlorn vs sad

forlorn

adj
  • Pitifully sad, wretched, miserable; lonely, especially from feeling abandoned, deserted, forsaken. 

  • Abandoned, deserted, left behind. 

  • Unlikely to succeed; hopeless. 

noun
  • A forlorn hope. 

  • A member of a forlorn hope. 

sad

adj
  • Feeling sorrow; sorrowful, mournful. 

  • Soggy (to refer to pastries). 

  • Causing sorrow; lamentable. 

  • Of colours: dark, deep; later, sombre, dull. 

  • Appearing sorrowful. 

  • Poor in quality, bad; shameful, deplorable; later, regrettable, poor. 

  • Unfashionable; socially inadequate or undesirable. 

How often have the words forlorn and sad occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )