Library / English Dictionary

WOE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Intense mournfulness

Synonyms:

woe; woefulness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("woe" is a kind of...):

mournfulness; ruthfulness; sorrowfulness (a state of gloomy sorrow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Misery resulting from affliction

Synonyms:

suffering; woe

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("woe" is a kind of...):

miserableness; misery; wretchedness (a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I see that more than a mere dutiful morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

They were awed by what they had already seen of Wolf Larsen’s character, while the tale of woe they speedily heard in the forecastle took the last bit of rebellion out of them.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had raised to be able to carry it farther; he could no longer command solemnity either of subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to use her own fancy in the perusal of Matilda's woes.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Then the prince took care to throw away the sleeping draught; and when Lily came and began again to tell him what woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been, he knew his beloved wife’s voice, and sprang up, and said, You have awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you; but Heaven hath sent you to me in a lucky hour.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

When such men, who are beyond hope and fear, begin in their dim minds to see the source of their woes, it may be an evil time for those who have wronged them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And woe to the dog that at such times ran foul of him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I tried both ways, and when it came to a sniff or utter mortification and woe, he just threw the grammar on to the floor and marched out of the room.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I could offer no explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)