The article is dedicated to the exploration of the concept of sorrow in Russian linguistic consciousness. The relevance of the work is determined by the fact that the concepts of negative emotions occupy an unique place in Russian linguistic picture of the world, but they remain incomprehensible and inaccessible to most foreign students. So it is necessary to analyze them against the background of comparison with another culture. Based on the idea of the unity of the speech-thinking act, in which the linguistic and logical content are presented together, we study the figurative notions and the semantic constants of the concept of sorrow. Based on the study of materials in The Russian National rpus, all epithets that are used in combination with the word 'sorrow' are identified and typical, real and figurative signs of the concept of sorrow are classified. It is established that these signs are manifested either by itself, or from outside, or by the author's arbitrariness. The denotata that are manifested by s