woebegone
Syllables: woe·be·gone/ˈwəʊbɪɡɒn//ˈwoʊbiˌɡɔn/
woebegone adjective: of a person: deeply affected or overwhelmed by suffering or trouble, and so filled with woe (“great distress or sadness”); (loosely) forlorn, sad, unhappy.
Adjective
woebegone (comparative more woebegone, superlative most woebegone)
- Of a person: deeply affected or overwhelmed by suffering or trouble, and so filled with woe (“great distress or sadness”); (loosely) forlorn, sad, unhappy.
- [M]ake an ende of mone, / For you are ſicke, and ſhe is woe begone.1576, George Gascoigne, “[Flowers.] The Delectable History of Sundry Aduentures Passed by Dan Bartholomew of Bathe.”, in The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. […], London: […] H[enry] Bynneman for...
- Thou trembleſt, and the vvhitenes in thy cheeke, / Is apter then thy tongue to tell thy arrand, / Euen ſuch a man, ſo faint, ſo ſpiritleſſe, / So dull, ſo dead in looke, ſoe vvoe begon, / Drevv Priams curtaine in the dead of night, / And vvould haue told him halfe his Troy vvas burnt: […]c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600...
- Synonyms:
- lamentable, atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, blue, bummed out, chapfallen, cheerless, chopfallen
- Of a person or thing: having a distressed, miserable, or sad appearance.
- Pen and Miss Bolton were hard by listening to the same concert, and the latter remarked, and Pen laughed at Mr. Foker's wo-begone face. Fanny asked what it was that made that odd-looking little man so dismal? "I think he is crossed in love!" Pen said.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Monseigneur s’ Amuse”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 84
- I now went down to have a look at the "port." It was the most woebegone excavation, full of mud and fishy refuse, you ever saw.1862, George Augustus Sala, “About Shrimpington”, in Accepted Addresses, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 153
- Synonyms:
- derelict, dilapidated, godforsaken, ramshackle, rundown, tumbledown
- Of a thing: in a deplorable state.
- The 44-year-old [Mikhail] Prokhorov, the second-richest man in Russia, is expected to assume control of the woebegone Nets within the next few weeks.2010 April 27, Howard Beck, “Russian billionaire is white knight for the Nets”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Jan...
Noun
woebegone (plural woebegones)
- A person who is deeply affected or overwhelmed by suffering or trouble, and so filled with woe.
- Near-synonym: (chiefly US, informal) sad sack
- According to the prophecy of Mrs. [Maria] Woodworth, George Erickson and several other revivalists, who created considerable excitement in Oakland some time ago, this was the day on which San Francisco and Oakland were to be destroyed by earthquake and a tidal wave, and the cities of Chicago and...1890 April 15, “Oakland’s doom sealers. Camped out on the hills waiting for the destruction that did not come.”, in The Sun, volume LVII, number 227, New York, N.Y.: [Moses Yale Beach], →OCLC, page...
- Synonyms:
- sad sack
woebegone meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
woebegone in Tamil
- துன்பத்தில் ஆழ்ந்த
woebegone in Urdu
- افسردہ, درہم برہم, حزین, مغموم
woebegone in Malayalam
- unhappy, sad, miserable
- ദുരിതമയമായ, ദുരിതമനുഭവിക്കുന്ന, ദുഃഖ, ശോകാ ഭിശപ്തമായ, അതൃപ്ത, ശോകാർത്തമായ
woebegone in Kannada
- ಮಂಕುಕವಿದ, ವಿಷಣ್ಣ, ಗೋಳುಕರೆಯ, ತರುವಲಿಯಾದ
Examples of woebegone in a sentence
- The woebegone children have their aspirations slowly snuffed.2024 October 23, Jacob Oller, “Clay Weepy Memoir Of A Snail Crawls through a Gauntlet of Misery”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the...
- "[T]his café is really on the losing end of this street." It was almost as woebegone in sunshine as it had been in the rain.1966, Helen MacInnes, chapter 6, in The Double Image, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace & World, →OCLC, page 80:
- Two woebegones they chanced to meet, / With hungry eyes, as if despair / Like an old spider sat in there / And slow thereof did drink and eat; […]1917, Maurice Hewlett, “Life in Death”, in The Loving History of Peridore & Paravail, London; Glasgow: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC...
- How many wingeing woebegones have you got there for me this morning?1988, Jonathan Havard, chapter 3, in Coming of Age, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 25:
Synonyms of woebegone
- lamentable
- atrabiliary
- atrabilious
- blitheless
- dispirited
- blue
- bummed out
- chapfallen
- cheerless
- chopfallen
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of woebegone
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more woebegone |
| superlative | most woebegone |
| Noun | |
| plural | woebegones |
Origin of woebegone
From Middle English wo-bigon, wo-begon (“(adjective) deeply affected by woe, distressed, sorrowful, wretched; affected by physical impairment or pain; tired, weary; abominable, cursed; (noun) unfortunate person, wretch”), from wo (“distress, misery, woe; physical pain or suffering; etc.”) + bigon (the past participle form of bigon (“of a state: to come upon or overtake (someone), beset, overwhelm, bego; of a person: to be overwhelmed by grief, etc.”)): * wo is derived from Old English wā (“woe”), from Proto-West Germanic *wai (“woe!”, interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (“woe!”, interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (“ah!, oh!; alas!, woe!”, interjection). * bigon is derived from Old English begān (“to go over, traverse; to beset, surround; to occupy; to overrun; etc.”), from Proto-West Germanic *bigān, from *bi- (from Proto-Germanic *bi- (prefix meaning ‘at; by’), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁épi (“at; near; on”)) + *gān (“to go”) (from Proto-Germanic *gāną (“to go; to walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₁- (“to go; to reach; to abandon, leave”)). By surface analysis, woe + begone (the past participle form of bego (“(obsolete) to affect”)). Noun...
Words formed from woebegone
- Lake Wobegon
- woebegonely
- woebegoneness
- woebegonish
Questions about woebegone
- What does woebegone mean?
- Woebegone means of a person: deeply affected or overwhelmed by suffering or trouble, and so filled with woe (“great distress or sadness”); (loosely) forlorn, sad, unhappy.
- What is woebegone in Tamil?
- Woebegone in Tamil is துன்பத்தில் ஆழ்ந்த. See Woebegone meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use woebegone in a sentence?
- The woebegone children have their aspirations slowly snuffed.
- What part of speech is woebegone?
- Woebegone can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce woebegone?
- Woebegone is pronounced /ˈwəʊbɪɡɒn/ (UK).
Words near woebegone in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: woebegone (page history and authors); woebegone (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); woebegone (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); woebegone (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); woebegone (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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Cite this entry: “woebegone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/woebegone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.