woebegone
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈwəʊbɪɡɒn/
enpr: wōʹbĭ-gôn
ipa: /ˈwoʊbɪɡɔn/
enpr: wōʹbĭ-gän
ipa: /ˈwoʊbɪɡɑn/
Forms: form: more woebegone
form: most woebegone
Etymology: From Old English wābegān (“beset by woe”), from wā (“woe”) + begān (“to beset, to surround”). Equivalent to woe + begone (past participle of bego).
Senses: examples: text: The 44-year-old Prokhorov, the second-richest man in Russia, is expected to assume control of the woebegone Nets within the next few weeks.
ref: 2010 April 27, Howard Beck, “Russian Billionaire Is White Knight for the Nets”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
synonyms: dilapidated
derelict
godforsaken
ramshackle
rundown
tumbledown
glosses: In a deplorable state.
examples: text: Pen and Miss Bolton were hard by listening to the same concert, and the latter remarked, and Pen laughed at Mr. Foker’s woebegone face.
Fanny asked what it was that made that odd-looking little man so dismal? “I think he is crossed in love!” Pen said.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 47, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
text: When he was finished, as such, he was wringing wet, and now he had to edge and shimmy his way back, and with a most woebegone look, and everybody laughing, except the sad blond boy, and the Minnesotans roaring in the cab.
ref: 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Penguin, published 1976, →OCLC, page 29:
text: The woebegone children have their aspirations slowly snuffed. Grace’s artistic dreams (of animation, of course) are punctured by her isolated existence; Gilbert’s pyrophilia is smothered by religious extremism.
ref: 2024 October 23, Jacob Oller, “Clay weepy Memoir Of A Snail crawls through a gauntlet of misery”, in AV Club:
synonyms: word: sad
word: lamentable
word: atrabiliary
word: atrabilious
word: blitheless
word: dispirited
word: blue
word: bummed out
word: chapfallen
word: cheerless
word: chopfallen
word: crestfallen
word: cut up
word: damp
word: dejected
word: depressed
word: despondent
word: disgruntled
word: disconsolate
word: disheartened
word: dismal
word: doleful
word: dolesome
word: down
word: down in the dumps
word: down in the mouth
word: downcast
word: downhearted
word: downsome
word: dull
word: elegiac
word: elegious
word: forlorn
word: gloomy
word: glum
word: grief-stricken
word: grieving
word: heavy-hearted
word: heartsore
word: heartsick
word: inconsolable
word: infelicitous
word: jawfallen
word: joyless
word: lachrymose
word: lamentful
word: low
word: low-spirited
word: lugubrious
word: lumpish
word: melancholic
word: melancholy
word: miserable
word: moody
word: mopey
word: morose
word: mournful
word: passionate
word: plaintive
word: querulous
word: sad
word: saddened
word: saturnine
word: shattered
word: solemn
word: sombre
word: sorrowful
word: sorrow-ridden
word: sorrowsome
word: spiritless
word: sullen
word: threnetic
word: threnetical
word: triste
word: tristful
word: uncheerful
word: uncheery
word: unconsolable
word: unhappy
word: unlively
word: wistful
word: woe
word: woebegone
word: woeful
word: wretched
glosses: Filled with or deeply affected by woe.
Derived terms: Lake Wobegon
woebegonely
woebegoneness