woefully

Sometimes wo·ful·ly

[woh-fuh-lee]

adverb

1. in a sad or miserable way.

   More often than I care to remember, I’ve been stumped for suitable small talk and have ended up staring woefully into my drink.

2. to a particularly regrettable or unfortunate degree.

   The treatments prescribed by this psychiatrist are at best woefully inadequate, and at worst, make the patients more disabled than when they started out.

Other Word Forms

• unwoefully adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of woefully¹

woeful ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

Penelope could not help adding this tidbit of information, for with so much going on, the children had been woefully short on lessons.

Read more on Literature

As one might expect, the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females had been woefully undersupplied with boys, and as a result Penelope had hardly met any in her life.

Read more on Literature

To the extent Mr. Fuentes influences young people, it’s the same group of woefully disillusioned, overly online and increasingly lonely men already drawn to the darkest corners of the internet.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He believes the preliminary report was "woefully inadequate... embarrassingly inadequate".

Read more on BBC

Upgrades to security at the world-renowned museum have been moving at a "woefully inadequate pace," added Piere Moscovici at a press conference as he presented his body's report on the Paris museum.

Read more on Barron's

Related Words

• acutely 
• badly 
• greatly 
• sadly 
• severely