woefully
Americanadverb
-
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.
-
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
Etymology
Origin of woefully
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
If they're all true to recent form, none of them will speak, none will apologise, none will show humility by accepting that they got this woefully wrong.
From BBC
She said the Committee found the OSA to be "woefully inadequate" and called it "a shocking example of how UK citizens are left unprotected whilst social media companies act with impunity".
From BBC
As it turns out, the two-time Wimbledon champion was woefully ill-prepared – completing the ride in tennis shoes and boxer shorts.
From BBC
The lawsuit by the Los Angeles County woman called safety changes made in 2024 by Roblox “woefully inadequate” and said they were made “too late.”
From Los Angeles Times
Officials say the museum, which houses many of the world’s most precious works of art, has woefully outdated security infrastructure.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
