Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Worn or marked by woe or grief.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch extatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays waste every hope.

    The Last Man 2003

  • Often would he traverse the deck amid the still hours of midnight, when the moon silvered over the liquid surface: "Bright luminary of the lonely hour, he would say, that now sheddest thy mild and placid ray on the woe-worn head of fortune's fugitive, dost thou not also pensively shine on the sacred and silent grave of my Melissa?"

    Alonzo and Melissa The Unfeeling Father Daniel Jackson

  • As the night was very dark, and this was the last land that could afford us relief, all hands went to sleep, to refresh our woe-worn spirits.

    Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the South Seas, 1790-1791 Edward Edwards

  • Neither did he enquire into Alonzo's prospects [Oeither] now smooth as polished glass [snooth] the woe-worn head of fortune's fugitive [woe-worm]

    Alonzo and Melissa The Unfeeling Father Daniel Jackson

  • Whose wan and woe-worn charms rekindle at thy touch.

    Zophiel A Poem Maria Gowen Brooks

  • Time and again, strangers were astounded to see a wasted, pale, and woe-worn man laboriously climb a telegraph-pole in wintry and lonely places, perch sadly there an hour, with his ear at

    Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories Mark Twain 1872

  • Alas! there were many others in that village, and thousands of others throughout that blood-soaked land, who had no such gleam of sunshine sent into the dark recesses of their woe-worn hearts -- poor innocent souls these, who had lost their joy, their possessions, their hope, their all in this life, because of the mad, unreasonable superstition that it is necessary for men at times to arrange their differences by war!

    In the Track of the Troops 1859

  • "Heaven of heavens! how can this be?" cried Ishmael, looking up from these fearful lines into the woe-worn face of the judge.

    Self-Raised Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth 1859

  • I am but a poor, unlearned woman, whose heart is in her cause, and I should be untrue to the motive which induced me to chronicle the dark passages in my woe-worn life if I did not urge and importune the Apostles of Abolition to move forward and onward in their march of reform.

    Autobiography of a female slave, 1857

  • Anticipating His own glorious rising, He might well speak to Martha, standing before Him as the representative of weeping, sinful, woe-worn humanity, "He that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die."

    Memories of Bethany 1856

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