Virtuous English AcademyEmotions & Feelings — B1 English Vocabulary
This B1 vocabulary list gathers 40 intermediate English words about emotions & feelings — the deeper feelings behind what we do. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using emotions & feelings words in English
At A2 you learned emotion adjectives; this list gives you the nouns, and the nouns are where English suffixes become worth studying rather than memorising one by one. Happy becomes happiness, excited becomes excitement, frustrated becomes frustration — three different endings following three regular patterns. Two words here are also irregular enough to note: anger and pride do not follow any of them.
What to watch out for
Three suffixes make most emotion nouns
-ness attaches to plain adjectives: happiness, sadness, kindness, loneliness. -ment attaches to verbs: excitement, disappointment, enjoyment. -ion or -ation also comes from verbs: frustration, admiration, satisfaction. Learning which suffix a word takes is faster than learning each noun separately, because the pattern transfers to hundreds of other words.
Anger, pride, joy and sorrow are irregular
These four do not follow the suffix rules. Angry gives anger, and proud gives pride with a vowel change. Joy and sorrow are nouns first and give the adjectives joyful and sorrowful. Note that joy and sorrow are both literary in tone — in ordinary speech people say happiness and sadness — so they suit a written description more than a conversation.
The prepositions are fixed, and one is a false friend
Sympathy for somebody, enthusiasm for a project, a passion for music, guilt about something, relief at the news. Watch sympathy: in English it means feeling sorry for somebody in difficulty, not liking them. A person who is sympathetic is understanding about your problem — they are not simply nice, which is what the cognate means in several European languages.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: four adjectives that already sit at the top of their scale, four nouns for sadness ordered by weight, and the verbs for what the body does when a feeling arrives.
Four adjectives that are already at the top
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| furious | The far end of angry. Nothing stronger is needed, and it takes with a person, about a thing. | She was furious with the airline. |
| terrified | The far end of afraid. Takes of for a permanent fear and that for one occasion. | He is terrified of flying. |
| amazed | The far end of surprised. Takes at or by, and amazing describes the cause instead. | We were amazed at how quickly it sold. |
| overwhelmed | Buried under something — work, feeling, kindness. It takes by or with. | I felt completely overwhelmed by the response. |
These four cannot take very. A word that already means the maximum has nowhere left to go, so English switches to absolutely, completely or utterly: absolutely furious, completely terrified. Say very furious and nobody will misunderstand you, but every native listener will notice, which makes this one of the cheapest improvements available at this level.
Four nouns for sadness, ordered by weight
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| sadness | The ordinary, everyday noun. Uncountable, and the neutral choice in almost any sentence. | There was a note of sadness in her voice. |
| sorrow | Deeper and more literary. It appears in writing and in set phrases far more than in speech. | He spoke of his sorrow at the news. |
| grief | Specifically the sadness that follows a death. Uncountable, and not interchangeable with the others. | She is still coming to terms with her grief. |
| despair | Sadness plus the belief that nothing can be done. It is about hopelessness rather than about loss. | He gave up the search in despair. |
The one to be careful with is grief, because it is reserved for bereavement in ordinary English and sounds theatrical anywhere else. Despair is the odd one on the list: it is not a stronger version of sadness at all but a different feeling, and its adjective hopeless is what most speakers actually reach for in conversation.
What the body does when a feeling arrives
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| weep | A formal, written word for cry. It appears in journalism and literature rather than in conversation. | The crowd wept as the news spread. |
| tremble | To shake slightly, from fear, cold or anger. Usually about hands, voice or the whole body. | His hands were trembling. |
| sigh | To breathe out audibly from relief, tiredness or impatience. It is a verb and a noun with one spelling. | She sighed and put the phone down. |
| cheer | To shout with approval. The phrasal cheer up is a different verb meaning to become happier. | The whole stadium cheered. |
These are the verbs that make written description work, and three of the four also exist as nouns with the same spelling: a sigh, a cheer, a tremble. The exception is weep, whose noun is simply tears. Note that cheer up splits: you can cheer somebody up or cheer up by yourself, and the two mean different things.
Collocations that sound natural
Six emotion nouns that almost never stand alone. Each one has a verb it belongs with, and choosing the wrong verb is more noticeable than choosing a simpler noun would have been.
relief
what a reliefa huge reliefto my reliefa sigh of relief
Uncountable, so what a relief is a fixed exclamation rather than an article plus noun. To my relief at the start of a sentence is a neat way of reporting how something turned out, and it works with surprise and horror in the same slot.
guilt
feel guilty abouta sense of guiltadmit guilta guilt trip
The noun is uncountable and the adjective guilty takes about for the feeling. Do not confuse it with the legal sense, where guilty takes of, so guilty of theft and guilty about the theft are two entirely different statements.
pride
take pride ina source of prideswallow your pridewith pride
The verb is take, and what you are proud of follows in. Swallow your pride means accepting something embarrassing in order to get on, and it is one of the most useful idioms on this list.
sympathy
have sympathy forexpress sympathyyou have my sympathiesin sympathy with
The preposition splits: sympathy for a person who is suffering, sympathy with an opinion you partly share. The plural sympathies only appears in the fixed condolence phrase.
enthusiasm
full of enthusiasmenthusiasm forlose enthusiasmgreet with enthusiasm
Uncountable, and the thing you are keen on takes for. The adjective is enthusiastic, which is stressed on the third syllable, and both words are spelled with an h that is silent in neither.
temper
lose your temperkeep your tempera short tempera bad temper
It means your control over anger, not anger itself, which is why lose your temper means to stop controlling it. A short temper describes somebody who loses it quickly, and in a temper means in the middle of an outburst.
Where each word belongs
Seven words with a level of formality or a second sense attached. Emotion vocabulary is where the wrong register reads as insincere rather than merely foreign, so these are worth placing precisely.
- emotionalTwo senses · one of them criticalNeutral in emotional support or an emotional decision. But she got emotional means she nearly cried, and calling somebody emotional outright is a criticism in British English, implying they cannot control themselves. The safe neutral word is upset.
- passionStrong · and it covers hobbiesEnglish uses it far beyond romance: a passion for cooking is a perfectly ordinary sentence and appears on job applications. The preposition is for, and the adjective passionate works the same way. Uncountable when abstract, countable when it names one enthusiasm.
- desireWriting · formalThe written counterpart of want, and it takes either to plus a verb or for plus a noun. In conversation it sounds heavy or faintly romantic, so an essay is its natural home. The verb form is grammatically fine but rarer still.
- ashamedAbout yourself onlyIt means you feel bad about something you did, and it takes of. Embarrassed is the weaker word for a moment of social awkwardness with no wrongdoing. English also has shameful, which describes the act rather than the person.
- eagerWriting · positive · takes toKeen and impatient to do something, always positive, and followed by to plus a verb. Speech prefers keen in Britain and excited everywhere, but eager is safe and slightly elegant in written English.
- affectionUncountable · warmer than likingA gentle, steady fondness, most often used about family, old friends and animals. It is uncountable, so a great deal of affection, and the adjective affectionate describes somebody who shows it openly.
- hopelessTwo senses · one of them a jokeAbout a situation it means nothing can be done, which is serious. About a person plus at it is a light self-criticism: I am hopeless at maths. The second use is extremely common in British conversation and carries no real weight.
Sentences to try
Four frames using the abstract nouns. Try to say each one with the adjective instead, and notice which sounds better.
- There was a real sense of relief when the results arrived.
- She spoke about her work with genuine enthusiasm.
- His frustration was obvious to everyone in the room.
- I felt a lot of sympathy for the family.
Questions about emotions & feelings vocabulary
How do I make nouns from emotion adjectives in English?
Three suffixes cover most of them. Add -ness to a plain adjective: sad gives sadness, happy gives happiness, lonely gives loneliness — note the y becoming i. Add -ment to a verb: excite gives excitement, disappoint gives disappointment. Add -ion or -ation to other verbs: frustrate gives frustration, admire gives admiration. A handful are irregular and simply have to be learned: angry gives anger, and proud gives pride.
Does "sympathetic" mean nice in English?
No, and this is a widespread false friend. In English, sympathetic means showing understanding and compassion for somebody in trouble: She was very sympathetic when I told her about the accident. In French, Spanish, Italian, German and several other languages the cognate means likeable or friendly, which is a quite different idea. If you mean somebody is pleasant company, use nice, friendly, likeable or charming. The noun sympathy follows the English meaning: You have my sympathy.
What is the difference between joy and happiness?
They describe similar feelings at different intensities and in different registers. Happiness is the ordinary, everyday word and covers a broad, often lasting contentment: Money does not buy happiness. Joy is stronger, more sudden and distinctly literary or formal: tears of joy, the joy of seeing her again. In conversation, English speakers reach for happiness or simply happy; joy appears mainly in writing, in fixed phrases and in celebratory contexts. The same register gap separates sadness from sorrow.