Dictionary

wailful en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈweɪlfəl/ (UK)

Etymology

From wail + -ful.

Meanings

1. (poetic) Sorrowful; mournful.
   • You must lay Lime, to tangle her desires / By walefull Sonnets, whose composed Rimes / Should be full fraught with seruiceable vowes. c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
   • Farre better I it deeme to die with speed / Then waste in woe and waylfull miserye […] 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

wailfully