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
-
The bitterly cold wind chills will linger through the morning commute, then gradually improve this afternoon as winds ease and temperatures climb.—
Kansas City Star,
Kansas City Star,
16 Mar. 2026
-
Democrats and Republicans clashed bitterly over the issues last week as hundreds of concerned parents and advocates traveled to the state Capitol complex to oppose the measures in front of three different committees on the same day.—
Christopher Keating,
Hartford Courant,
15 Mar. 2026
Adverb
-
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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The veteran actor has four Oscar nominations but has sadly gone 0 for 4, losing Best Supporting Actor for Platoon (1986), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), and The Florida Project (2017), and Best Actor for At Eternity's Gate (2018).—
Kevin Jacobsen,
Entertainment Weekly,
15 Mar. 2026
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His abhorrent behavior is sadly too common across the restaurant industry, from the finest dining to the humblest street stalls.—
Gustavo Arellano,
Los Angeles Times,
13 Mar. 2026
Adverb
-
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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Without a pipeline, as Europeans learned painfully when the Nord Stream pipeline was sabotaged, replacing gas in a tight market is very difficult.—
Michael Khouw,
CNBC,
12 Mar. 2026
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By then Liverpool had fallen behind in painfully avoidable fashion from a corner.—
James Pearce,
New York Times,
11 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Dolefully.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dolefully. Accessed 21 Mar. 2026.
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