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woebegone

[woh-bi-gawn, -gon]

Origin

adjective

beset with woe; affected by woe, especially in appearance.

showing or indicating woe: He always had a woebegone look on his face.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English wo begon orig., woe (has or had) surrounded (someone); wo woe + begon, past participle of begon, Old English begān to surround, besiege (see be-, go¹)

Related forms

woe·be·gone·ness, noun

Synonyms
2. suffering, troubled, forlorn, gloomy.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Woebegone is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

woebegone (ˈwəʊbɪˌɡɒn)

—*adj*
1.	sorrowful or sad in appearance
2.	archaic afflicted with woe

[C14: from a phrase such as me is wo begon woe has beset me]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

woebegone

c.1300, in me is wo bigone "woe has beset me," from begon "to beset, surround."

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Related Words

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Matching Quote

"The ferry here took us past the Indian island. As we left the shore, I observed a short, shabby, washerwoman-looking Indian,—they commonly have the woebegone look of the girl that cried for spilt milk,—just from "up river," land on the Oldtown side near a grocery, and, drawing up his canoe, take out a bundle of skins in one hand, and an empty keg or half-barrel in the other, and scramble up the bank with them. This picture will do to put before the Indian's history, that is, the history of his extinction."

-Henry David Thoreau

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