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.
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
Dr Rob Williams, president of the BVA, welcomed the move, calling the legislation "woefully outdated".
From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026
He has also spearheaded efforts to reform a woefully slow acquisition system, minimize stifling regulations, and take advantage of an innovative private sector.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
Opting to pursue enterprise customers, Anthropic seemed woefully behind OpenAI in the consumer realm — until now.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 6, 2026
A number twenty times that size still would have been woefully insufficient.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
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.
