Other forms: woes
Woe is great sorrow, or a trouble that causes it. Woe is me, tales of woe, economic woes.
The plural woes is the everyday survivor, used in headlines for a run of troubles. The singular is old and literary, and woe is me is a deliberate archaism now. Woe betide you is a threat, meaning misfortune will come to you.
1nounwoeGreat sorrow, or a trouble that causes it.
“She poured out all her woes to me, from her broken car to her unpaid bills.”
woe is a sorrow.
Old English wa was a cry of grief, from a Germanic exclamation. Latin vae and Greek ouai are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*wáy — oh!; ah!; woe!; alas!
Proto-Germanic
*wai — woe!
Proto-West Germanic
*wai
Old English
wā
Middle English
wo
English, today
woe
From Middle English wo, woo, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic wai, from Proto-Germanic wai (“woe!”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European wáy (“oh!; ah!; woe!; alas!”). 2 Cognate with Scots wae (“woe”), cim bèa baart (“woe!”), Dutch wee (“nauseating”), German Weh, Wehe (“misery, woe; pain”), Yiddish וויי (“pain; woe”), Danish, Norwegian Nynorsk, Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish ve (“woe”), Icelandic væl (“cry, wail”), væla (“to cry, wail; to complain”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹 (“woe!”); also kw gew, go (“woe!”), Welsh gwae (“misery, woe”), Catalan, Italian and Portuguese guai (“woe!”), lad guay, גואי (“woe”), Latin vae (“woe”), Romanian vai (“woe”), Spanish guay (“way”), Ancient Greek οὐαί (“woe!”), Albanian vaj (“woe!”), Latvian vai (“oh!”), Bulgarian уви́ (“alas”), Russian увы́ (“alas!”), Serbo-Croatian авај, avaj (“alas!”), Armenian վայ (“sorrow, woe”), Persian وای (“woe”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA