Word.ws English Dictionary

oh well

UK/ˈəʊ wɛl//ˈoʊ wɛl/

oh well interjection: an expression of mild disappointment or resignation: too bad; it's a pity; what can you do; it is what it is.

Interjection

  1. (idiomatic) An expression of mild disappointment or resignation: too bad; it's a pity; what can you do; it is what it is.
    • I didn’t know the store closes at five on Thursdays. Oh well, I’ll have to come back tomorrow.
    • Oh well, I guess.
    Synonyms:
    ah well, alas

Examples of oh well in a sentence

  • "Oh well, it can't be helped," returned Teal.1922 December, Harold Avery, “A Sixth Form Feud. A Public School Story.”, in The Boy’s Own Paper, volume XLV, part 2, London: "Boy's Own...
  • I'll catch a tongue-thrashing, I warrant … Oh well, I guess I'll risk it.1931, Edgar Caper, edited by Paul McPharlin, Lincoln and the Pig: […] (Puppet Plays; 2), Detroit, Mich., →OCLC, page 5:
  • He [George Miller] has stories he wants to tell, and if they don’t fit neatly into the mythology, then oh well.2017 December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury Road Might Already be the Best Action Movie Ever Made”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the...

Synonyms of oh well

Forms of oh well

alternative form (dated)oh, well

Questions about oh well

What does oh well mean?
Oh well means an expression of mild disappointment or resignation: too bad; it's a pity; what can you do; it is what it is.
How do you use oh well in a sentence?
"Oh well, it can't be helped," returned Teal.
What part of speech is oh well?
Oh well is an interjection.
How do you pronounce oh well?
Oh well is pronounced /ˈəʊ wɛl/ (UK).

Words near oh well in the dictionary

  1. oh really
  2. oh shittings
  3. oh snap
  4. oh so
  5. oh someone of little faith
  6. oh well
  7. oh worm
  8. oh ye of little faith
  9. oh yeah
  10. oh, brother
  11. oh, dear

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oh well (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-oh well.flac, en-au-oh well.ogg.

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