woeful

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From woe +‎ -ful.

Adjective

woeful (comparative woefuller, superlative woefullest)

  1. Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity.
    • (Can we date this quote by Daniel and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?), Civil War
      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.
  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!

Derived terms

Synonyms

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