Etymology

woeful

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Today it means: Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity. Full definition →

Middle English woful
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromwoful
  2. English todaywoeful

From Middle English woful, waful, equivalent to woe + -ful. Compare Old English wālīċ (“woeful”), Old English tēonful (“woeful”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.