DOLEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does doleful mean? 

• DOLEFUL (adjective)
  The adjective DOLEFUL has 1 sense:

1. filled with or evoking sadness

  Familiarity information: DOLEFUL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOLEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Filled with or evoking sadness

Synonyms:

doleful; mournful

Context example:

mournful news

Similar:

sad (experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness)

Derivation:

dolefulness (sadness caused by grief or affliction)

 Context examples 

In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected conversation: “Oh! Mr. Collins!”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

If he does go, the change will be doleful.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and conning tomorrow's lessons.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As they came up to them, Alleyne could hear the doleful dirge which the beater was chanting, bringing down his heavy whip at the end of each line, while the groans of the sufferer formed a sort of dismal chorus.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I picture myself with my books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)