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woe

noun
/wəʊ/UK/woʊ/US

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”).

  1. inherited from *wáy✻ — “oh!; ah!; woe!; alas!”
  2. inherited from *wai✻ — “woe!”
  3. inherited from *wai✻
  4. inherited from wā
  5. inherited from wo

Definitions

  1. Great sadness or distress

    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.

  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!
    • 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. A curse

    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?
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. Woeful

      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.

    2. An exclamation of grief.

      • Miranda: O woe, the day.

The neighborhood

Derived

for weal or woe, in weal and woe, tale of woe, woebegone, woe betide, woeful, woe is me, woe is I, woe to

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at woe. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01woe02calamity03loss04longer05yearns06yearn07sympathy08sorrow

A definitional loop anchored at woe. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at woe

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA