as in sadly
with feelings of bitterness or grief
woefully recounted the many injustices that the family had endured at the hands of the dictator
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Recent Examples of woefully
Legend always told us that Disneyland was woefully unprepared for opening day.
—
Brady MacDonald, Oc Register, 9 Jan. 2026
The attack on Venezuela and the capture of its President, the most consequential foreign-policy act of this Administration, has been impeccably planned and woefully undertheorized.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2026
Karl-Anthony Towns has been woefully underutilized through the opening third of Brown’s first season at Madison Square Garden.
—Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 5 Jan. 2026
Another whiff like that will only cement the idea that Apple is woefully behind its peers in AI and risks losing control over the next major computing platform to a rival like Google or a startup like OpenAI.
—Steve Kovach, CNBC, 30 Dec. 2025
In addition to Murton's denunciations of conditions at Cummins and Tucker, his book explores the woefully inadequate women's prison, located on the same grounds as Cummins.
—Arkansas Online, 27 Dec. 2025
While Jenna Ortega's red carpet style is objectively top tier, her off-duty looks are woefully underrated.
—Emily Tannenbaum, Glamour, 21 Dec. 2025
Better teams could pounce on the Leafs’ woefully tepid first-period performance and put the game to bed.
—Joshua Kloke, New York Times, 17 Dec. 2025
Anchored by David Yazbek’s eclectic score, and a game supporting cast including the luminous Julia Knitel, this woefully underseen oddity was both a playful and poignant rumination on legacy.
—Patrick Ryan, USA Today, 12 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for woefully
Adverb
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This should be, but sadly will probably not be, the line that shouldn’t have been crossed.—
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Discovering the chemicals responsible for smoke taint is, sadly, only half the battle.—
Adverb
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Its inhabitants were left without light or heat during a bitterly cold polar vortex, with temperatures as low as 2 degrees Fahrenheit.—
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Hasina was bitterly criticized by both her opponents and independent critics for sending Zia to jail.—
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.—
Adverb
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Inspired by a 2017 Los Angeles Time article about a San Gabriel Valley tragedy, director Eric Lin’s heartbreaking feature painfully reminds us of the need to get help and how mental health issues within Asian cultures need to be destigmatized.—
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By Sunday, he was gone, a mercifully swift ending to painfully slow decline.—
Adverb
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Alexandria has been really hard hit, down 50% in that period.—
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For instance, walking most days is far better than exercising hard once a month.—
Cite this Entry
“Woefully.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/woefully. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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