woe
woe Lexical Profile
woe Game Scores & Validity
• noun
Things that cause sorrow, trouble, or difficulty (usually used in the plural).
"The company's financial woes worsened after the supply chain disruption."
Great sorrow, grief, or mental distress.
"She listened patiently to his long tale of woe after the project fell through."
• interjection
Used (now chiefly archaically or humorously, as in 'woe is me') to express deep grief, regret, or distress.
"Woe is me, I left my study notes on the train right before the final exam!"
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse with the homophone 'whoa' (an exclamation used to express surprise or to command a horse to stop). In modern usage, the singular 'woe' is mostly literary or used in fixed expressions like 'a tale of woe,' whereas the plural 'woes' is widely used in journalism and everyday speech to mean troubles or difficulties.
• Rhymes for woe
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English wā, originally an interjection expressing grief or lamentation, descending from Proto-Germanic *wai and ultimately from an Indo-European imitative root (cognate with Latin vae).