wailful

English

Etymology

From wail +‎ -ful.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈweɪlfəl/

Adjective

wailful (comparative more wailful, superlative most wailful)

1. (chiefly poetic) Sorrowful; mournful.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: [...] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Farre better I it deeme to die with speed / Then waste in woe and waylfull miserye [...]

   • 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):

     You must lay Lime, to tangle her desires / By walefull Sonnets, whose composed Rimes / Should be full fraught with seruiceable vowes.