Deep, often inconsolable grief or affliction (archaic/literary).
Deep, often inconsolable grief or affliction (archaic/literary); in the plural, troubles or misfortunes.
Deep, inconsolable grief or misery, distinctly archaic and literary in register (“a tale of woe,” “woe is me,” “woe betide”) — heavier and more rhetorical than sadness or sorrow, and more generalized lament than grief (which is tied to an immediate cause). Crucially, the plural “woes” has a separate, fully current sense — troubles or misfortunes (“economic woes,” “legal woes”) — naming external afflictions rather than the inner emotion. Lacks the specific hopelessness of despair or desolation; its force is lament.
A condition of deep suffering or inconsolable grief — “a tale of woe,” “woe is me.”
Now archaic/literary; began as the exclamation of lament wa! (Old English).
In the plural, ruinous troubles, calamities, or misfortunes — “economic woes.”
This plural sense is fully current, common in journalism; it names external afflictions, not the inner feeling.
Mid-13c. noun, from the interjection of lament wei!/wa! (Old English wa!), an exclamation of grief paralleled across languages (Latin vae, German weh). The “calamity, affliction” sense appears by late 14c.
Began as an interjection of grief and was made a noun by the mid-13c.; the “calamity” sense followed by late 14c. The singular emotional sense has drifted toward archaic/literary register while the plural “woes” (= troubles) remains common, current journalistic English. No reliable recent-generation shift.