woe
English · Thesaurus
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woe¹
- /wəʊ/ UK
- /woʊ/ US
Sounds like whoa (wine–whine merger) · Rhymes with -əʊ
Where it comes from
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”).
noun woes
-
Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
Oh, woe is me!
Similar: bale, grief, sorrow, misery, blueness, tristesse, mirthlessness, blues, crestfallenness, dejection, depression, despondency
-
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!
Similar: adversity, apocalypse, calamity, catastrophe, disaster, misery, qualm, woe
- 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?
Similar: affliction, aggrievance, distress, grief, grievance, hardship, misery, ruth, sadness, sorrow, undelight, vexation, woe, wrong · Opposite: benefit, boon, fortune, joy, laugh, treat
adjective more woe · most woe
-
Woeful; sorrowful
hys clerk was wo to do þat dede
Similar: miserable, atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, blue, bummed out, chapfallen, cheerless, chopfallen, crestfallen, cut up
interjection
- An exclamation of grief. Miranda: O woe, the day.
woe²
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: woefulness, suffering, heartbreak, sadness, heartache, sorrow, grief, misery, doom, plight, pity, distress, affliction, pain, shame, scourge
Translations
Every language
noun grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity
| Español | pena, infortunio, ay, congoja, mal |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 悲痛 bēitòng, 悲慟 /悲恸 bēitòng, 悲恸 bēitòng |
| Português | desgraça, infelicidade, mágoa |
| Français | tristesse, douleur, misère, malheur |
| Deutsch | Weh, Jammer, Kummer, Leid |
| Italiano | dolore, disgrazia, guaio |
| Ελληνικά | θλίψη thlípsi, συμφορά symforá |
| Română | durere, suferință, mâhnire, nenorocire |
| Русский | печа́ль pečálʹ, грусть grustʹ, го́ре góre |
| Tiếng Việt | khốn |
| العربية | حَزَن ḥazan |
| עברית | אבוי avoy, צער tsa'ar, יגון yagon |
Talk about this word "woe." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/woe. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. woe. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/woe "woe." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/woe.Cite this
@misc{woe_2026,
title = {woe},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/woe},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
