woe

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woe

 (wō)
n.
1. Sorrow or grief; misery. See Synonyms at regret.
2.
a. Misfortune or wretchedness: listened to his tale of woe.
b. A cause of sorrow or misery; a misfortune: economic and political woes.
interj.
Used to express sorrow or dismay.
Idioms:
woe betide (someone)
1. Used to express the wish for someone to experience misfortune.
2. Used as a warning or allusion to negative consequences: "Even though my dad was no farmer, he was a crack shot and a very good hunter&.... woe betide the unwary moose that wandered down from Canada" (Howard Frank Mosher).
woe is me
Used to lament one's situation or fate.
woe to (someone)
1. Used to express the wish for someone to experience misfortune.
2. Used as a warning or allusion to negative consequences: "Our sun will be a red giant, and woe to any earthlings who may be around to witness its bloated blush, for the planet on which they stand will likely be vaporized in the expansion" (Natalie Angier).

[Middle English wa, wo, from Old English , woe!]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

woe

(wəʊ)
n
1. literary intense grief or misery
2. (often plural) affliction or misfortune
3. woe betide someone misfortune will befall someone: woe betide you if you arrive late.
interj
archaic Also: woe is me an exclamation of sorrow or distress
[Old English wā, wǣ; related to Old Saxon, Old High German wē, Old Norse vei, Gothic wai, Latin vae, Sanskrit uvē; see wail]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

woe

(woʊ)

n.
1. grievous distress, affliction, or trouble.
2. an affliction: She suffered a fall, among her other woes.
interj.
3. (used to express grief, distress, or lamentation.)
[before 900; Middle English wo (interjection and n.), Old English (interjection), c. Old Saxon, Old High German wē, Old Norse vei, Gothic wai, Latin vae]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.woe - misery resulting from affliction
miserableness, misery, wretchedness - a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune; "the misery and wretchedness of those slums is intolerable"
2.woe - intense mournfulness
mournfulness, ruthfulness, sorrowfulness - a state of gloomy sorrow
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

woe

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

woe

noun
1. A state of physical or mental suffering:
2. A state of prolonged anguish and privation:
3. A cause of suffering or harm:
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
بَلاء، بُؤْس، حُزْن شَديد
sorg
surutuska
sorg, harmur
liūdesio prislėgtas
bēdasnelaimeposts
bieda

woe

[wəʊ] N (poet, hum) → desgracia f, aflicción f
woe is me!¡ay de mí!
woe betide you if you're lying!¡pobre de ti como sea mentira!
a tale of woeuna historia triste
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

woe

[ˈwəʊ]
n (= great sadness) → malheur m
a tale of woe (account of sb's misfortunes)une histoire malheureuse
He listened to my tale of woe → Il écouta ma triste histoire.
woe betide sb → malheur à qn woes
npl (= troubles) → malheurs mpl
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

woe

n
(liter, hum, sorrow) → Jammer m; woe (is me)!weh mir!; woe betide him who …!wehe dem, der …!; a tale of woeeine Geschichte des Jammers
(esp pl: = trouble, affliction) → Kummer m; to pour out one’s woes to somebodysich (dat)seinen Kummer bei jdm von der Seele reden
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

woe

[wəʊ] n (liter) (hum) → dolore m
woe is me! → me tapino/a!
woe betide him who ... → guai a chi...
a tale of woe → una triste storia
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

woe

(wəu) noun
(a cause of) grief or misery. He has many woes; He told a tale of woe.
ˈwoeful adjective
miserable; unhappy. a woeful expression.
ˈwoefully adverb
ˈwoefulness noun
ˈwoebegone (-bigon) adjective
sad-looking. a woebegone face.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
References in classic literature ?
CHORUS What fresh woes bring'st thou to the royal house?
Woe worth the monstrous marriage-bed where lay A mother with the son her womb had borne, Therein I was conceived, woe worth the day, Fruit of incestuous sheets, a maid forlorn, And now I pass, accursed and unwed, To meet them as an alien there below; And thee, O brother, in marriage ill-bestead,
It was by reason of my years that I Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring Him back to Thebes; not the delegate Of one man, but commissioned by the State, Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed, Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes. O listen to me, luckless Oedipus, Come home!
In old days when by self-wrought woes distraught, I yearned for exile as a glad release, Thy will refused the favor then I craved.
I thought He'd take it to the country whence he came; But he preserved it for the worst of woes. For if thou art in sooth what this man saith, God pity thee!
And while I suffer thus, there comes no ray Of hope to gladden me athwart the gloom; Nor do I look for it in my despair; But rather clinging to a cureless woe, All hope do I abjure for evermore.
I'll give them work to do, and I'll make them so full of the very joy of doing it that they won't have TIME to look at their neighbors' woodboxes!" And he picked up his sermon notes, tore straight through the sheets, and cast them from him, so that on one side of his chair lay "But woe unto you," and on the other, "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" while across the smooth white paper before him his pencil fairly flew--after first drawing one black line through Matthew twenty-third; 13--14 and 23."
Woe, woe to the seeking ones!"--thus hath it echoed through all time.
Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like.
so my conscience hangs in me!" he groans, "straight upward, so it burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!" Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.
A FLEA thus questioned an Ox: "What ails you, that being so huge and strong, you submit to the wrongs you receive from men and slave for them day by day, while I, being so small a creature, mercilessly feed on their flesh and drink their blood without stint?' The Ox replied: "I do not wish to be ungrateful, for I am loved and well cared for by men, and they often pat my head and shoulders." "Woe's me!" said the flea; "this very patting which you like, whenever it happens to me, brings with it my inevitable destruction."
and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.--But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!