What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Woe vs Wretchedness - What's the difference?

woe | wretchedness | Related terms |

Woe is a related term of wretchedness.


As nouns the difference between woe and wretchedness

is that woe is grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity while wretchedness is an unhappy state of mental or physical suffering.

As an adjective woe

is (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful.

woe

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.
  • * Milton
    • Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe , she took.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • [They] weep each other's woe .
  • A curse; a malediction.
  • * South
    • 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 me

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful
  • * Robert of Brunne
    • His clerk was woe to do that deed.
  • * Chaucer
    • Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.
  • * Spenser
    • And looking up he waxed wondrous woe .

    Anagrams

    *

    wretchedness

    English

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • An unhappy state of mental or physical suffering.
  • * 1811 , Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility , chapter 3
    • She saw only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind by ill-timed conversation.
  • A state of prolonged misfortune, privation or anguish.