woe is me

Definition

Used to show that the speaker feels distress or misery.

Etymology

Here, the oblique pronoun me denotes not an informal copulative complement (as in this is me), but an indirect object, wherefore it literally means woe is to me, an obsolete way of saying I feel woe; compare German mir ist traurig (“I feel sad”, literally “to-me [it] is sad”). Idiomatically, it means woe is upon me. See also German weh ist mir and its descendant, Yiddish וויי איז מיר (vey iz mir), which are identical in form and meaning to the English expression.

Example Sentences

• "Blasted with extasie. Oh, woe is me, T'haue seene what I haue seene: see what I see."
• "Woe is me, that I soiourne in Mesech: that I dwell in the tents of Kedar."
• "“Ah, woe is me! Alas, for my kingdom and my kinfolk!”"

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