Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Affected by or full of woe; mournful.
- adj. Causing or involving woe.
- adj. Deplorably bad or wretched: woeful treatment of the accused; woeful errors in judgment.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Full of woe; distressed with grief or calamity; afflicted; sorrowful.
- Relating or pertaining to woe; expressing woe; characterized by sorrow or woe; deplorable.
- Wretched; paltry; mean; pitiful.
- =Syn.2. Mournful, calamitous, disastrous, afflictive, miserable, grievous. See woe.
Wiktionary
- adj. Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity.
- adj. Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction.
- adj. wretched; paltry; poor
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity; afflicted; wretched; unhappy; sad.
- adj. Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction.
- adj. Wretched; paltry; miserable; poor.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. affected by or full of grief or woe
- adj. of very poor quality or condition
Etymologies
- From woe + -ful. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Liverpool were again woeful as an injury-plagued Everton side secured their first derby win in four years through goals from Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta.”
The Guardian: Liverpool display was best so far says Roy Hodgson despite Everton win
“SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Drew Gooden left the Chicago Bulls and their losing record last month before spending a couple weeks in woeful Sacramento.”
“The Pacers were woeful from the floor in the opening minutes - missing 14 of their first 18 shots - but Dunleavy did plenty to make sure Miami didn't open an early lead.”
“It was in woeful condition due and in danger of being lost, until the new owners decided to save it.”
“Time sware my life should fare in woeful waste, ii.”
“So he drave out to Miriam, who ran at him with the best of her skill and charged him with the goodliness of her cleverness and her courage and her cunning in fence and cavalarice, crying to him, “O accursed, O enemy of Allah and the Moslems, I will assuredly send thee after thy brothers and woeful is the abiding-place of the Miscreants!””
“News: MS marketing for XBLC games "woeful" - Clover/Tank Strike devs scream change.”
“Crime and what many in the medical field call a woeful lack of medical treatment.”
“CALLEBS: In many ways, Cotton's death shines a glaring light on two of the problems plaguing post-Katrina New Orleans -- crime and what many in the medical field call a woeful lack of mental health treatment.”
“In it, she recalls the woeful tale of one museum's archaeological collection, which had been stored in an abandoned car wash for two years.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘woeful’.
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NTDW2
yawp, smug, whit, amidships, jounce, fallow, conscionable, polyp, nouveau riche, palatial, encomiastic, exchequer and 182 more...
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Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Down in the dumps, feeling blue? Here, then, is a list for you...
feeling blue, down in the dumps, blue devils, mulligrubs, mubblefubbles, melancholy, lugubrious, gloomy gus, eeyore, doleful, woeful, woebegone and 86 more...
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Vocab [General]
No particular specification to this list.
philology, etymology, atavistic, proscribe, inchoate, vulgate, abstruse, agnate, anodize, anthropomorphic, assiduous, augur and 89 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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edes's Words
table talk, tuneful, bestrewn, determinate fashion, unpretending, personage, duly impressed, shirring, caw, hatchet job, gummy, comely and 225 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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2011 July
New words
correspondent, promulgate, transgress, trite, ravine, corespondent, contrivance, contrive, expedient, conducive, clairvoyance, difform and 184 more...
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fearraigh's Words
heretofore, seldom, cunt, calamity, overhead, phalanx, flunky, factotum, terrestrial, dormant, afflatus, periphery and 156 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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Moods
apathy, cuntificate, quixotic, noxious, fetid, malodorous, trepidation, expectancy, contempt, disgust, terror, fear and 149 more...
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Bad Mood
If you're gonna feel this way, you might as well enjoy it.
curmudgeonly, grumpy, cantankerous, resentful, crusty, pissed, irascible, moody, surly, cranky, peevish, cross and 57 more...
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tralala's Words
arch, enigmatic, inexplicable, captivating, merry, advantageous, appropriate, compelling, alluring, wicked, inept, douse and 200 more...
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I'm not always depressed: only when I...
gloomy, blue, morose, woebegone, melancholic, tragic, woeful, mopey, despondent, miserable, broody, mirthless and 24 more...
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