woeful

adjective

woe·​ful ˈwō-fəl 

variants or less commonly woful

1

: full of woe : grievous

woeful prophecies

2

: involving or bringing woe

3

: lamentably bad or serious : deplorable

woeful ignorance

woefully

ˈwō-f(ə-)lē 

adverb

woefulness

ˈwō-fəl-nəs 

noun

Synonyms

• aching
• agonized
• anguished
• bemoaning
• bewailing
• bitter
• deploring
• doleful
• dolesome
• dolorous
• funeral
• grieving
• heartbroken
• lamentable
• lugubrious
• mournful
• plaintive
• plangent
• regretful
• rueful
• sorrowful
• sorry
• wailing
• weeping

Examples of woeful in a Sentence

The puppy had woeful eyes.

The student's grades were woeful.

Recent Examples on the Web

Since the launch of the ID product family in 2019, VW has shifted more than 1.35 million ID EVs worldwide, many with the woeful haptic buttons customers have loathed, but which mercifully have now been binned. —Julian Chokkattu, WIRED, 8 Feb. 2025

The catastrophic crashes of two Boeing 737s in 2018 and 2019, claiming 346 lives, were fundamentally tied to woeful deficiencies in addressing human factors in the design, deployment, certification, and operation of the MCAS system. —Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 7 Feb. 2025

The agency elevated its fight against climate change into a central pillar of U.S. development work akin to poverty reduction — a woeful distraction from its work in war zones and in countries suffering famine. —The Editors, National Review, 5 Feb. 2025

This is good news for China after a woeful 2024 that saw a roughly 25% full-year slide versus 2023. —Nancy Tartaglione, Deadline, 2 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

woeful

adjective

woe·​ful ˈwō-fəl 

1

: full of woe

a woeful tale

2

: involving or bringing woe

a woeful occurrence

3

: pitifully bad

woeful ignorance

woefully

-f(ə-)lē 

adverb

woefulness

-fəl-nəs 

noun