WOEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does woeful mean? 

• WOEFUL (adjective)
  The adjective WOEFUL has 2 senses:

1. affected by or full of grief or woe

2. of very poor quality or condition

  Familiarity information: WOEFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WOEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Affected by or full of grief or woe

Synonyms:

woebegone; woeful

Context example:

his sorrow...made him look...haggard and...woebegone

Similar:

sorrowful (experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss)

Derivation:

woefulness (intense mournfulness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of very poor quality or condition

Synonyms:

deplorable; execrable; miserable; woeful; wretched

Context example:

woeful errors of judgment

Similar:

inferior (of low or inferior quality)

 Context examples 

With woeful countenances they looked at each other.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure was odious.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is impossible; even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words which are to convey to you the horrible tidings.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Do you think I don't know what a woeful day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her way—smirking and making great eyes at her, I'll be bound, as if you couldn't say boh! to a goose!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I am going to unexplored regions, to the land of mist and snow, but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the Ancient Mariner.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)