woebegone
adjective
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Breaking Down Woebegone
Whoa, whoa, whoa. We know that, at first glance, woebegone looks like a word that has its meaning backwards; after all, if begone means “go away,” shouldn’t woebegone mean “devoid of woe,” or “happy”? Not exactly. The word comes from the Middle English phrase wo begon. The wo in this phrase does indeed mean “woe,” but begon means “beset.” Someone who is woebegone, therefore, is beset with woe. Since the mid-1700s, the word has also been used to describe things that appear to express sadness, as in “the woebegone look on his face when he misplaced his favorite dictionary.”
Examples of woebegone in a Sentence
Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 13 July 2025
While examples abound, the state’s woebegone bullet train project, its tortuous efforts to implement information technology and the financial and managerial meltdown of its unemployment insurance program are among the most egregious.
—Dan Walters, Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2025
Sunday, the Sox, who are now an impossibly bad 31-100, locked up the sixth triple-digit-loss season in their woebegone history with a 9-4 defeat at the hands of the Detroit Tigers.
—Jon Greenberg, The Athletic, 25 Aug. 2024
This is what passes for epiphany for the solemn, solitary Jane, who searches for self-knowledge in a woebegone key.
—Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
See All Example Sentences for woebegone
Cite this Entry
“Woebegone.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woebegone. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.
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woebegone
adjective
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