• (British) IPA: /wəʊ/
• (America) enPR: wō, IPA: /woʊ/

woe

1. Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.

   Synonyms: grief, sorrow, misery

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe, she took.

   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard

     Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose / That well-known name awakens all my woes.

   • October 14 2017, Sandeep Moudgal, The Times of India, Rains devastate families, political parties make beeline to apply balm on open wounds

     The Friday night rains which wrecked families in Kurabarahalli saw all the three major political parties making a beeline to express their condolences, listen to their woes and provide compensation in the hope of garnering their goodwill ahead of the 2018 assembly elections.

2. Calamity, trouble.
3. A curse; a malediction.

   • Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?

• French: tristesse, douleur, misère, malheur
• German: Weh, Jammer, Kummer, Leid
• Italian: dolore, disgrazia, guaio
• Portuguese: desgraça, infelicidade, mágoa
• Russian: печа́ль
• Spanish: pena, infortunio, vay

woe

1. (obsolete) Woeful; sorrowful

   • His clerk was woe to do that deed.

   • Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.

   • And looking up he waxed wondrous woe.

   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene i], page 17 ↗:

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1. (archaic) An exclamation of grief.
   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii], page 2 ↗:

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