Word.ws English Dictionary

doleful

/ˈdoʊlfəl/

doleful adjective: filled with grief, mournful, bringing feelings of sadness.

Adjective

doleful (comparative more doleful or dolefuller or dolefuler, superlative most doleful or dolefullest or dolefulest)

  1. Filled with grief, mournful, bringing feelings of sadness.
    • The doleful peal of the bell indicated another funeral was being held.
    • A doleful expression that tugged at my heartstrings.

doleful meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

doleful in Tamil

சோகமான, துயரம் மிகுந்த

doleful in Urdu

المناک, درد ناک, غمگین, ملول, رنجیدہ, اداس

doleful in Bengali

evoking sadness
দুঃখজনক dukkhojonok, বিষাদময় biśadomoẏ

doleful in Malayalam

ശോകമുളള, ദുഃഖിതമായ, പരിതാപകരമായ
More languagesFewer languages
doleful in Kannada
ಕೊರಗುವ, ಮರುಗುವ

Synonyms of doleful

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of doleful

Forms of doleful

comparativemore doleful
comparativedolefuller
comparativedolefuler
superlativemost doleful
superlativedolefullest
superlativedolefulest

Origin of doleful

From Middle English doleful, doolful, deolful, equivalent to dole + -ful.

Words formed from doleful

Words that rhyme with doleful

Questions about doleful

What does doleful mean?
Doleful means filled with grief, mournful, bringing feelings of sadness.
What is doleful in Tamil?
Doleful in Tamil is சோகமான, துயரம் மிகுந்த. See Doleful meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is doleful?
Doleful is an adjective.
How do you pronounce doleful?
Doleful is pronounced /ˈdoʊlfəl/.

Words near doleful in the dictionary

  1. dole queues
  2. dolebludger
  3. dolebludgers
  4. doled
  5. doled out
  6. doleful
  7. dolefuler
  8. dolefulest
  9. dolefull
  10. dolefuller
  11. dolefullest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doleful (page history and authors); doleful (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); doleful (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); doleful (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); doleful (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-doleful.wav.

Cite this entry: “doleful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doleful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.