woe
/woʊ/noun
woe is spelled W-O-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 2.0 times per million words in written English, the 19,336th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, woe means “Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of woe is woes.
How many letters and syllables are in woe?
| Letters | 3: W-O-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.0 times per million words; the 19,336th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is woe?
Woe appears 2.0 times per million words in written English, the 19,336th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce woe?
- UK /wəʊ/
- US /woʊ/
Woe has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-woe.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with woe
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: whoa (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with woe?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as woe from its last stressed vowel (/oʊ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: owe.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of woe
- woes plural
- more woe comparative
- most woe superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does woe mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
Oh, woe is me!
- 2
Calamity, trouble.
- 3
A curse; a malediction.
- 4
slangA close friend; a nigga, homie or bro.
adjective
- 1
obsoleteWoeful; sorrowful
interjection
- 1
archaicAn exclamation of grief.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Woe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tristesse, douleur, misère, malheur , hélas |
| German | Weh, Jammer, Kummer, Leid , weh |
| Portuguese | desgraça, infelicidade, mágoa |
| Spanish | pena, infortunio, ay, congoja, mal |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does woe come from?
From Middle English wo, woo, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai (interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (“woe!”, interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (“oh!; ah!; woe!; alas!”, interjection).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).