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
Etymology
Origin of woefully
Explanation
When you do something in a way that expresses how very sad or mournful you feel, you do it woefully. You can also use this adverb for things that are done really badly, like your woefully sloppy cake decorations. If you sigh woefully, "I miss my friend who moved away," you're speaking in a voice full of sorrow and longing. And if you graduate from high school not knowing how to speak even rudimentary Spanish, you can say that you are woefully lacking in foreign language skills. The "sorrowfully" meaning is the older of the two, but the "terribly" meaning is slightly more common. Woefully and woe are rooted in the Old English lamentation wa!
Vocabulary lists containing woefully
Vocabulary from the Seventh Democratic Debate, March 6, 2016
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Hilary Putnam (1926-2016)Tribute List
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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.
The overall number of people who are fully prepared when it comes to estate-planning documents is still woefully small, according to Trust & Will’s survey.
From MarketWatch • Jul. 6, 2026
Students are woefully unprepared for college and life. Realtor.com noted recently that a third of adults under 35 lived with their parents last year—a higher rate than during the pandemic.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 21, 2026
Instead, the standard recommendation for pain relief during IUD insertion is to take 800 milligrams of ibuprofen an hour beforehand—a method that falls woefully short of addressing the intense discomfort experienced by many patients.
From Slate • Jun. 7, 2026
Police are woefully understaffed and hampered by public policy, said Blair Besten, president of downtown’s Historic Core Business Improvement District, a nonprofit that arranges graffiti removal, trash pickup and safety patrols in the area.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 18, 2026
But the Italian army proved woefully unprepared for war, launching repeated attacks against the Austrians, gaining no ground, suffering huge casualties, and becoming a liability rather than an asset to the Allies.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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.
