Meaning & use
woefully
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Meanings
adverbnot comparable
To a very bad or disappointing degree; used to strengthen a negative word.
Grammar: Goes before an adjective or past participle: woefully inadequate.
Patterns
- woefully + adjective
- woefully + past participle
The team was woefully unprepared for the cold.
The museum is woefully underfunded.
Their knowledge of the subject was woefully thin.
adverbnot comparableliterary
In a sad or sorrowful way.
Grammar: Describes how someone acts or speaks, usually in a literary tone.
Patterns
- look woefully at someone
The child looked woefully at the broken toy.
He shook his head woefully and walked away.
Common combinations
- woefully inadequate
- The supplies were woefully inadequate for so many people.
- woefully unprepared
- They arrived woefully unprepared for the exam.
- woefully underfunded
- Local schools are woefully underfunded.
- woefully short
- The budget fell woefully short of what we needed.
- woefully behind
- The project is woefully behind schedule.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dreadfully
- Dreadfully is a general intensifier meaning very badly, and can be lighter in tone.
- pitifully
- Pitifully stresses that something is so poor it makes you feel sorry.
- lamentably
- Lamentably is more formal and suggests the speaker regrets the situation.
- sadly
- Sadly describes unhappy feeling or regret, without the sense of a large shortfall.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: woefully or woeful?
woefully vs woeful
Woeful is the adjective (a woeful performance), while woefully is the adverb that strengthens other words (woefully slow).
Practice
The town's emergency plans were ____ inadequate when the flood arrived.
Choose one answer.
Woefully intensifies a negative word like inadequate. Wonderfully and wisely are positive in tone and clash with it.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “woefully”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.