as in bitterly
with feelings of bitterness or grief
the novelist dolefully remarked that the proceeds from his last book would scarcely buy a dollhouse, let alone a real house
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Recent Examples of dolefully
There’s ample gore and jumpy moments, but the true scariness here is of the forlorn kind; leads Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen play the mounting nightmare with ache and desperation, elevating the emotional tenor of a dolefully eerie movie.
—
Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 31 Jan. 2026
Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 31 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dolefully
Adverb
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Since October last year, Russia has intensified its drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian energy system, knocking out electricity and heat and plunging millions of Ukrainians into long blackouts during bitterly cold winter temperatures.—
CNN Money,
CNN Money,
21 Feb. 2026
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In Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region, over half the homes have been without heat for two bitterly cold months.—
Yuras Karmanau,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb. 2026
Adverb
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Tarun would tease her, and my mother would look sorrowfully toward Kavitha, as if the two of them now shared some womanly burden.—
Madhuri Vijay,
New Yorker,
16 Nov. 2025
Adverb
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That means some of the oddball stuff that had a moment toward the end of the Peak TV boom is falling away, sadly — no one’s greenlighting something as off kilter as The OA or Servant these days.—
Rick Porter,
HollywoodReporter,
21 Feb. 2026
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Some rooms and terraces overlook the gothic Wrigley and Tribune Buildings (now, sadly, condos), and Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago are a few blocks away.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
20 Feb. 2026
Adverb
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For their part, Democratic leaders spoke mournfully of limits, of energy shortages, of national decline, of a crisis of confidence itself.—
Rosa Lyster,
Harpers Magazine,
30 Dec. 2025
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Based on the Dylan Thomas prose poem of the same name, published in 1952, the film lovingly and mournfully depicts the boyhood Christmastime of an old Welshman, tenderly and a tad mischievously embodied by Elliott.—
Sheldon Pearce,
New Yorker,
21 Nov. 2025
Adverb
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Last year, a commitment to figuring out how to win each game’s evolving chess aided a run to 90 wins despite an offense that was painfully short of home run power.—
Tom Krasovic,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
21 Feb. 2026
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Viewers don’t need to be overly aware of the era’s politics to recognize the differences in worldview, circumstances and loyalties that painfully divide these sisters.—
Emily McClanathan,
Chicago Tribune,
20 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Dolefully.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dolefully. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
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