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Definition
expressing or causing sadness- It was another year of a doleful Detroit economy.
doleful = very sad; or causing sadness or misfortune
- Her doleful story of ruin did not sound so sad to those who had never had anything.
- The bell continued to swing, strike, and vibrate, with the same doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb.Hawthorne, Nathaniel -- From Twice Told Tales
- [among the tombs] I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me.Herman Melville -- Moby Dick
- Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,Shakespeare, William -- King John
- You sound as doleful as a funeral...C.S. Lewis -- The Silver Chair
- his mind began dolefully telling him that he was on a wild goose chase.Stephen King -- Cujo
- Your father, Mr. David, was a kind gentleman; but he was weak, dolefully weak;Robert Louis Stevenson -- Kidnapped
- But the driver was shaking his head dolefully.Stephen King -- The Shining
- The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition ... partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations,Washington Irving -- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- (Dolefully.) I suppose we'll have to go to sleep.Tom Stoppard -- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
- "Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."Douglas Adams -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning.Robert Louis Stevenson -- Treasure Island
- I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.William Shakespeare -- The Winter's Tale
- Each held a large earthenware jar, containing pebbles, and jerked it up and down in time to a doleful chant.E.M. Forster -- A Passage to India
- He has been very silent and doleful of late.Charles Dickens -- Hard Times
- From somewhere, a skinny, mangy brown dog appeared dolefully and joined the kid.Marcus Luttrell -- Lone Survivor
- She would stay in bed, wearing an old winter coat over her pajamas, a weary, doleful, unsmiling presence in the apartment.Khaled Hosseini -- And The Mountains Echoed
- "I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully.Lucy Maud Montgomery -- Anne Of Green Gables
- ...the old man armed for war to take his soldiers forward, undeterred by doleful age.Homer -- The Iliad
doleful = sad
dolefully = full of sadness
dolefully = sadly (in a manner that is full of sadness)
dolefully = in a manner that was full of sadness
doleful = sad
dolefully = full of sadness
dolefully = sadly
dolefully = full of sadness
doleful = full of sadness
doleful = expressing sadness
doleful = full of sadness
dolefully = full of sadness
doleful = full of sadness
dolefully = full of sorrow
doleful = causing sadness