woe

From Middle English wo, wei, wa, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai, from Proto-Germanic *wai (interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (interjection).

See also Dutch wee, German Weh, weh, Danish ve, Yiddish וויי (vey); also Latin vae, Albanian vaj, French ouais, Ancient Greek οὐαί (ouaí), Persian وای (vây) (Turkish vay, a Persian borrowing), and Armenian վայ (vay).

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• Rhymes: -əʊ
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woe (countable and uncountable, plural woes)

1. Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.

   Synonyms: grief, sorrow, misery

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe, she took.

   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard

     Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.

   • October 14 2017, Sandeep Moudgal, The Times of India, Rains devastate families, political parties make beeline to apply balm on open wounds

     The Friday night rains which wrecked families in Kurabarahalli saw all the three major political parties making a beeline to express their condolences, listen to their woes and provide compensation in the hope of garnering their goodwill ahead of the 2018 assembly elections.

2. Calamity, trouble.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 8:13:

     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!

3. A curse; a malediction.
   • 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:

     Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?

woe (comparative more woe, superlative most woe)

1. (obsolete) Woeful; sorrowful
   • 1303, Robert of Brunne, Handlyng synne

     hys clerk was wo to do þat dede

   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wyfe of Bathes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     Wo was the knight and sorroufully he syketh.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 53:

     And looking vp, when as his shield he lakt, / And sword saw not, he wexed wondrous woe

   • 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 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 17:

     Prospero: I am woe for't, Sir.

woe

1. (archaic) An exclamation of grief.
   • 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 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 2:

     Miranda: O woe, the day.

• owe

• wu, wuë (Eupen)
• wooe (Krefeld)
• boe (Maastrichtian)
• wo

woe

1. where

   Woe is Sjeng? ― Where is Sjeng?

From Old Dutch *wuo, from Proto-Germanic *hwō.

woe

1. (eastern) Alternative form of hoe

woe

1. Alternative form of we (“we”)