woe

/wəʊ/

//wəʊ// noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"woe" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“woe” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #19,509) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#19,509
frequency rank, English
1,759
“W” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.

Corpus desk

Index EN-woe · woe · English

woe · rank #19,509 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #19,509
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,759
  • PHOTO-FINISH Willard

Nearest frequency peer: Willard (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Frequency neighbours of confusable “woe”

Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below

corpus weight

What this shows Bars place “woe” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

woe vs Wu
0% similar
woe vs wt
33% similar
woe vs WS
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for woe
PropertyValue
Headwordwoe
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/wəʊ/
Letters3
Frequency rank#19,509
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Corpus rank beside confusables of “woe”

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).woelands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Same rarity band neighbours include “Willard” (#19,508), “Wilhelm” (#19,507), “WS” (#19,511). Among 1,759 “W” headwords, “woe” is #19,509. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for woe is neighbouring look-alikes ("Wu", "wt", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /wəʊ/. Frequency #19,509 among 1,759 “W” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Zero misspellings are on record for woe in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Wu", "wt", "WS", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wo, wei, wa, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai (interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (interjection). Cognate with Dutch wee, German Weh, weh, Yiddish וויי (… The correct English form is woe, spelled W-O-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
  2. 2
    Calamity, trouble.
  3. 3
    A curse; a malediction.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how woe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Oh, woe is me!
  2. Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe, she took.

Etymology

From Middle English wo, wei, wa, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai (interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (interjection). Cognate with Dutch wee, German Weh, weh, Yiddish וויי (vey), Danish, Norn, Norwegian, Swedish ve, Faroese and Icelandic vei, Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹 (wai), Catalan, Italian, and Portuguese guai, Romanian vai, Spanish guay, Latin vae, Ancient Greek οὐαί (ouaí), Albanian vaj, Latvian vai, Lithuanian vai̇̃, Bulgarian уви́ (uví), Russian увы́ (uvý), Serbo-Croatian avaj, Persian وای (vây), Armenian վայ (vay).

Synonyms

afflictionaggrievancedistressgriefgrievancehardshipmiseryruthsadnesssorrowundelightvexationwoewrong

Antonyms

benefitboonfortunejoylaughtreat

This word in other languages

pena(Español)tristesse(Français)Weh(Deutsch)desgraça(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "woe"?
"woe" is spelled W-O-E. The IPA pronunciation is /wəʊ/.
What does "woe" mean?
As a noun, "woe" means: Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.
What words are commonly confused with "woe"?
"woe" is commonly confused with "Wu", "wt", "WS". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "woe"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "woe" is /wəʊ/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "woe"?
From Middle English wo, wei, wa, from Old English wā, wǣ, from Proto-West Germanic *wai (interjection), from Proto-Germanic *wai (interjection), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wáy (interjection). Cognate with Dutch wee, German Weh, weh, Yidd... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "woe", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Abi#19,514AMI#19,519TNT#19,487THC#19,484

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list