woeful
WOH-ful
/ˈwəʊ.fəl/
Full of woe; wretched, sorrowful, or lamentably bad.
Can describe extreme distress/sadness, or informally something wretchedly poor in quality.
The story behind the word. Traces back to the ancient Germanic cry of anguish 'wa!' (cognate with Latin 'vae!'). People crying out 'wa!' in pain gave birth to 'woe' and eventually 'woeful'.
Word relationships
- wretched: Wretched emphasizes miserable, pitiful conditions.
- lamentable: Lamentable emphasizes that something is worthy of regret or disapproval.
- joyous: Joyous means full of happiness and delight.
- splendid: Splendid means magnificent and excellent in quality.
Commonly confused with
- awful: Awful means bad or dreadful, whereas woeful carries the direct connotation of grief or wretched insufficiency.
Word family
- woe (noun): Great sorrow or distress.
- woefully (adverb): In a woeful manner; deplorably.
Collocations
- woeful tale
- woeful state
- woeful lack
- woeful plight
Idioms & expressions
- woe is me
Example sentences
- "For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo." Literary classic (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
- "The neglected neighborhood suffered from woeful infrastructure and inadequate services." Report commentary
Memory hook
WHOA! That is a woeful situation full of sorrow! Full of woe and grief.
When not to use
Avoid using in technical scientific papers unless referring to wretched conditions.
Fun facts
- The exclamation 'Woe is me!' is ancient, appearing repeatedly in original translations of the Bible.
Take your vocabulary further with LangBlitz
Our English vocabulary app: FSRS spaced repetition, 5,000+ curated words across 119 topic groups, CEFR A1 to C2. Explore your mastery with the beautiful Vocabulary World feature.