FreeScrabbleDictionary

woe

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
6
Words With Friends
6
Letters
3
Pronunciation
/wəʊ/
See all 2 pronunciations
/wəʊ/ · /woʊ/

Definition of woe

5 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)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.”
    “Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.”
    “But if there was a competition between a ſick family and a new broach, the broach was ſure to carry the day. This would not have been the caſe, had they been habituated to viſit themſelves the abodes of penury and woe.”
    “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.”
See all 5 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)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.”
    “Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.”
    “But if there was a competition between a ſick family and a new broach, the broach was ſure to carry the day. This would not have been the caſe, had they been habituated to viſit themſelves the abodes of penury and woe.”
    “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. (countable, uncountable)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!”
    “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 now”
  3. (countable, uncountable)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?”

adj

  1. (obsolete)Woeful; sorrowful
    “hys clerk was wo to do þat dede”
    “And looking vp, when as his shield he lakt, / And sword saw not, he wexed wondrous woe”
    “Prospero: I am woe for't, Sir.”
    “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.”

intj

  1. (archaic)An exclamation of grief.
    “Miranda: O woe, the day.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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…

See full etymology

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, 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”).

Anagrams of woe

3 plays · some not in Scrabble

Best play owe 6 points

Words you can make from woe

6 playable · top: OWE (6 pts)

Best play owe 6 points

2-letter words

5 words

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1 extension · 1 back

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