woeful

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity.

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

2. 2
   adj

   Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction.

   A woeful event.

3. 3
   adj

   Lamentable, deplorable.

   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. 4
   adj

   Wretched; paltry; poor.

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

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

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