Alas vs Woe - What's the difference?
alas | woe |
Used to express sorrow, regret, compassion or grief.
* Act 5, Scene 1
a type of
grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.
* Milton
* Alexander Pope
A curse; a malediction.
* South
(obsolete) woeful; sorrowful
* Robert of Brunne
* Chaucer
* Spenser
As nouns the difference between alas and woe
is that alas is a type of {{l/en|depression}} which occurs in {{l/en|Yakutia}}, formed by the {{l/en|subsidence}} of {{l/en|permafrost} while woe is grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.As an interjection alas
is used to express sorrow, regret, compassion or grief.As an adjective woe is
woeful; sorrowful.alas
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) a las (French .Interjection
(en interjection)- Alas , Poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.
Synonyms
* alackDerived terms
* alack and alasEtymology 2
From (etyl) .Noun
(en-noun)Anagrams
* ----woe
English
Noun
(en noun)- Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe , she took.
- [They] weep each other's woe .
- Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?
Derived terms
* in weal or woe * woeful * woe is meAdjective
(en adjective)- His clerk was woe to do that deed.
- Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.
- And looking up he waxed wondrous woe .