Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use woefully in a sentence

20 example sentences · adverb

Woefully means in a woeful manner. Example: “Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion.”

Examples of woefully by meaning

adverbIn a woeful manner.

  • to cry woefully

adverbTo an unfortunately great extent.

  • The attempt at diversity fell woefully short of dispelling straight stereotypes of us.1979 December 29, Cindy Stein, “Queers in America's Living Rooms”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 23, page 10
  • In our broken culture those who have experienced the training of the yogic ashram are often woefully ignorant in the ways of the university, and vice versa.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London...
  • For international services, London's High Speed 1 route to the Channel Tunnel remains woefully underused.2025 April 16, Philip Haigh, “Competition hots up on the Channel Tunnel route”, in RAIL, number 1033, page 50

More sentences with woefully

  • Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion.From the entry legion
  • The president lamented that his nation's fisheries are woefully overexploited, not least because of foreign fishing fleets with no regard for sustainability.From the entry overexploit
  • The president lamented that his nation's human capital is woefully underexploited owing to a dearth of financial capital with which to start and expand businesses.From the entry underexploit
  • The president lamented that his nation's abundant sunshine is woefully underexploited owing to a dearth of financial capital with which to buy and install thousands of new solar panels.From the entry underexploit
  • The law is a woefully blunt instrument when it comes to domestic violence of all kinds.2003 May 5, Aisha Labi, “The Runaway Bride”, in Time. From the entry blunt instrument
  • Today most childcare centres are woefully understaffed with poorly paid and underqualified personnel.1993, Amitai Etzioni, The parenting deficit. From the entry childcare
  • The meager X-ray facts are woefully inadequate and there is nothing upon modern roentgen-cardiography.1924 November, “Physical Diagnosis by Richard C. Cabot, M.D., Professor of Medicine in Harvard University, Formerly Chief of the West…. From the entry oh well
  • The other issue is that as a nation and a society, we are woefully unprepared for the coming jobpocalypse.2018 July 19, Broke-Ass Stuart, “Note to tech industry: How about asking, ‘Should we do this?’”, in San Francisco Examiner. From the entry jobpocalypse
  • Julianne Moore’s Chanel was woefully drippy, Jennifer Aniston’s mermaid Versace was stale as five-day-old bread and Kerry Washington wore maid-of-honour chic.2015 February 23, “Oscars 2015: 10 things we learned”, in The Guardian (London). From the entry drippy
  • Baker had appeared recently at a Canadian book festival, an event that the blogger claimed was woefully underattended, like Salter's reading.2015, J.C. Hallman, B & Me: A True Story of Literary Arousal, →ISBN, page 21. From the entry underattended
  • The scenes in the burning tower are woefully underimagined.2013, Kristiaan Versluys, Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel, →ISBN. From the entry underimagined
  • The result is an hourlong stuntfest that, hard as it tries, is woefully short on thrills and artistry.2008 April 15, Claudia La Rocco, “Choreographers Cross Over, and Gymnasts Take Flight”, in New York Times. From the entry stuntfest
  • In “Corsaire” the introductory “Naila” waltz looks woefully underchoreographed.2008 April 10, Alastair Macaulay, “At the Kirov, Can Too Many Cooks Spoil the Ballet?”, in New York Times. From the entry underchoreographed
  • For many o fhte millions who start over again with children in the equation, that folkism proves woefully true.2007, Beth Roy, Parents' Lives, Children's Needs, page 211. From the entry folkism
  • "A mater sandwich would be better." Trixie said, "but I'll take it if that's all you got." As if we were woefully deprived of food.2015, Ann B. Ross, Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry mater
  • “The Knight of Burgavenny groweth old and wrinklesome, he botched his hymn most woefully, his armour is dull and tarnished, and his arm stiff with age.2013 (original 1888), Arthur Machen, Delphi Collected Works of Arthur Machen: The Chronicle of Clemendy. From the entry wrinklesome

Meaning of woefully

  1. adverb In a woeful manner.
  2. adverb To an unfortunately great extent.

Full definition of woefully

Questions about woefully in a sentence

How do you use woefully in a sentence?
Woefully is used as an adverb. For example: “Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion.”
What is a short sentence with woefully?
“to cry woefully”
What does woefully mean?
Woefully means in a woeful manner.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: woefully (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use woefully in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/woefully. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.