woeful

English

Alternative forms

• woful, wofull (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English woful, waful, equivalent to woe +‎ -ful. Compare Old English wālīċ (“woeful”), Old English tēonful (“woeful”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwəʊfəl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊfəl

Adjective

woeful (comparative woefuller, superlative woefullest)

1. Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity.
   • 1595, Samuel Daniel, “(please specify the folio number)”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

     How many woeful widows left to bow / To sad disgrace!

2. Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction.

   a woeful event

   a woeful lack of restraint

3. Lamentable, deplorable.
   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], lines 1033-36:

     Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
     This wide and universal theatre
     Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
     Wherein we play in.

4. Wretched; paltry; poor.
   • 1711, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism; republished in The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, page 72:

     What woful stuff this madrigal would be / In some starv'd hackney sonneteer or me!

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lamentable

Derived terms

• woefully
• woefulness