Word.ws English Dictionary

woe

UK/wəʊ//woʊ/

woe noun: great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.

Noun (1)

woe (countable and uncountable, plural woes)

  1. Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
    • Oh, woe is me!
    • Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe, she took.1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
  2. Calamity, trouble.
    • And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 8:13
    • Don't let the little woes of life harm you / Let the joy in the life you lead / Let it charm you / Let it charm you now1980, Chaka Khan, “Nothing's Gonna Take You Away”, in Naughty (Chaka Khan album)
  3. A curse; a malediction.
    • Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London

Adjective

woe (comparative more woe, superlative most woe)

  1. (obsolete) Woeful; sorrowful
    • hys clerk was wo to do þat dede1303, Robert of Brunne, Handlyng synne
    • And looking vp, when as his shield he lakt, / And sword saw not, he wexed wondrous woe1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 53

Interjection

  1. (archaic) An exclamation of grief.
    • Miranda: O woe, the day.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Noun (2)

woe (plural woes)

  1. (slang, Baltimore, African-American Vernacular) A close friend; a nigga, homie or bro.

woe meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

woe in Tamil

இன்னல், கடுந்துயரம், துன்பம், வருத்தம்

woe in Urdu

exclamation of grief
ہائے hā'yē

woe in Malayalam

മഹാസങ്കടം, വിപത്ത്, ദുഃഖം, കഷ്ടത

woe in Kannada

ವ್ಯಥೆ, ತೀವ್ರಸಂಕಟ, ಅತಿಶಯವಾದ ಅಳಲು, ದುಃಖ, ಕಟ್ಟಳಲು, ತೊಂದರೆ
More languagesFewer languages
woe in Punjabi
ਹਾਏ hāē
woe in Arabic
حَزَن ḥazan, وَيْل wayl
woe in Malay
alahai, aduh, aduhai
woe in Indonesian
celaka
woe in Persian
وای vây
woe in Vietnamese
khốn

Examples of woe in a sentence

  • Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.1717, Alexander Pope, “Eloisa to Abelard”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot...
  • This would not have been the caſe, had they been habituated to viſit themſelves the abodes of penury and woe.1808, [Hannah More], chapter VI, in Cœlebs in Search of a Wife. […], volume I, London: […] [Strahan and Preston] for T[homas] Cadell and...
  • But long they waited, and longer still, / With doubt and muckle pain, / But woe were the hearts of his brethren, / For he came not back again.1890, Joseph Jacobs, “Childe Rowland”, in English Fairy Tales, page 118:

All 40 example sentences with woe

Synonyms of woe

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of woe

Forms of woe

Noun
pluralwoes
Adjective
comparativemore woe
superlativemost woe

Plural of woe: woes

Origin of woe

From Middle English wo, woo, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai (interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (“woe!”, interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (“oh!; ah!; woe!; alas!”, interjection). Cognates Cognate with Scots wae (“woe”), Cimbrian bèa (“woe!”), Dutch wee (“nauseating”), German Weh, Wehe (“misery, woe; pain”), Yiddish וויי (vey, “pain; woe”), Danish, Norwegian Nynorsk, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish ve (“woe”), Icelandic væl (“cry, wail”), væla (“to cry, wail; to complain”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹 (wai, “woe!”); also Cornish gew, go (“woe!”), Welsh gwae (“misery, woe”), Catalan, Italian, and Portuguese guai (“woe!”), Ladino guay, גואי (“woe”), Latin vae (“woe”), Romanian vai (“woe”), Spanish guay (“way”), Ancient Greek οὐαί (ouaí, “woe!”), Albanian vaj (“woe!”), Latvian vai (“oh!”), Bulgarian уви́ (uví, “alas”), Russian увы́ (uvý, “alas!”), Serbo-Croatian авај, avaj (“alas!”), Armenian վայ (vay, “sorrow, woe”), Persian وای (vây, “woe”).

Words formed from woe

Phrases with woe

Words that rhyme with woe

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about woe

What does woe mean?
Woe means great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
What is woe in Tamil?
Woe in Tamil is இன்னல், கடுந்துயரம், துன்பம். See Woe meaning in Tamil.
How do you use woe in a sentence?
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.
What part of speech is woe?
Woe can be a noun, an adjective or an interjection.
How do you pronounce woe?
Woe is pronounced /wəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of woe?
The plural of woe is woes.

Words near woe in the dictionary

  1. wods
  2. Wodzinski
  3. Wodzinskis
  4. Wodzynski
  5. Wodzynskis
  6. woe
  7. woe betide
  8. woe is I
  9. woe is me
  10. woe to
  11. woebegone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: woe (page history and authors); woe (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); woe (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); woe (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: En-us-woe.ogg.

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