Woeful means full of sorrow, or shockingly poor in quality. A woeful expression, a woeful performance, woefully inadequate.
The second sense is now the commoner, and woefully inadequate is the standard verdict of any report. The first is literary and belongs with the noun woe, which nobody uses in speech.
1adjectivewoefulFull of sorrow, or shockingly poor in quality.
“The team's defending was woeful, and they lost five-nil.”
woeful is a quality.
Woe plus -ful, from Old English wa, an exclamation of grief.
Middle English
woful
English, today
woeful
From Middle English woful, waful, equivalent to woe + ful. Compare Old English wālīċ (“woeful”), Old English tēonful (“woeful”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA