Literary, rare word describing a deeply sorrowful or pitiful state. Not used in everyday conversation.
My heart ached at his miserable circumstances.
A novel depicting the dreadful reality of war.
Rare kanji form; the word is literary and seldom encountered in modern writing.
Variant kanji form; equally rare and literary.
The exact derivation is uncertain; the kanji 悽 (sorrowful) and 愴 (grieved) combine to suggest deep sadness, but the word is not a productive compound in modern Japanese.