woeful

Etymology

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

adj

  1. Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity.
  2. Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction.
    a woeful event
    a woeful lack of restraint
  3. Lamentable, deplorable.
  4. Wretched; paltry; poor.
    What woful stuff this madrigal would be / In some starv'd hackney sonneteer or me! 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

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