Search the Dictionary

itance; any piece of personal property that has been in a family for several generations. Woe to him whose daring hand profanes The honored heirlooms of his ancestors. Moir.

nder, without a full declaration or explanation; also, an occasion or motive. Our hint of woe Is common. Shak. The hint malevolent, the look oblique. Hannah M

Unfortunate. [Obs.] I, woeful wretch and infortuned wight. Chaucer.

in contact; to connect; to couple; to unite; to combine; to associate; to add; to append. Woe unto them that join house to house. Is. v. 8. Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn Like twenty torches joined. Shak. Thy tuneful voice with numbers join. Dryden.

Languid; drooping.[Obs.] Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. Milton. Lank hair, long, thin hair. Macaulay.

A wretched person; a person afflicted by any great misfortune. [Obs.] Spenser. The woeful words of a miser now despairing. Sir P. Sidney.

Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe. Chaucer. Destruction and misery are in their ways. Rom. iii. 16.

votion than any solemn application of the mind to God. Law. And bear about the mockery of woe. Pope.

like; with the singular. He gat more money. Chaucer. If we procure not to ourselves more woe. Milton.

mmon; joint; as, mutual happiness; a mutual effort. Burke. A vast accession of misery and woe from the mutual weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Bentley.

able; inexpressible. But what it is, that is not yet known; what I can not name; nameless woe,I wot. Shak. I have a nameless horror of the man. Hawthorne.

To take or hold possession of; to hold or keep for use; to possess. Woe occupieth the fine [/end] of our gladness. Chaucer. The better apartments were already occupied. W. Irving .

A cause or occasion of stumbling or of sin. [Obs.] Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh! Matt. xviii. 7.

Heavy; overpowering; hard to be borne; as, oppressive grief or woe. To ease the soul of one oppressive weight. Pope. -- Op*press"ive*ly, adv. -- Op*press"ive*ness, n.

See Outrage, v. i. [Obs.] This warn I you, that ye not suddenly Out of yourself for no woe should outraye. Chaucer.

n of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part. [Archaic] "A parcel of her woe." Chaucer. Two parcels of the white of an egg. Arbuthnot. The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government. J. A. Symonds.

Woe; torment; pain. [Obs.] "Pyne of hell." Chaucer.

icular situation or state; especially, an unfortunate or trying position or condition. "O woeful sympathy; piteous predicament!" Shak.

get; to obtain by any means, as by purchase or loan. If we procure not to ourselves more woe. Milton.

d or evil of; to know by trial; to experience; to suffer. Where she, captived long, great woes did prove. Spenser.