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doleful
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Her mother's doleful rhythm followed them everywhere.   (source)
    doleful = expressing or causing sadness
  • "There's only apples," said Lucy dolefully.   (source)
    dolefully = sadly
  • (Dolefully.) I suppose we'll have to go to sleep.   (source)
    dolefully = full of sadness
  • At his words, Arjun broke into doleful sobs and his brother, Thambi, followed suit.   (source)
  • 'Born outa too much joy'll be a doleful boy.'   (source)
  • "Yeah man," Lige would cut in, dolefully.   (source)
  • Each held a large earthenware jar, containing pebbles, and jerked it up and down in time to a doleful chant.   (source)
    doleful = expressing sadness
  • The tunes were either very lively or very doleful, and he sang words to some of them.   (source)
    doleful = full of sadness
  • "I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully.   (source)
    dolefully = full of sorrow
  • ...a huge cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a description.   (source)
    doleful = sorrowful (full of sadness)
  • There was one who raised a doleful cry.   (source)
    doleful = full of sadness
  • And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning.   (source)
  • ...the old man armed for war to take his soldiers forward, undeterred by doleful age.   (source)
    doleful = causing sadness
  • Her expression was doleful.†   (source)
  • As the bellhops lugged it into the hall, the Rostovs' grandfather clock, which was fated to be left behind, tolled a doleful eight.†   (source)
  • Children sitting in twos and threes look up with doleful eyes as I pass.†   (source)
  • King Billy nodded dolefully.†   (source)
  • From the day he came to his office to ask for work, with his doleful appearance and his twenty-six useless years behind him, he had tested him with the severity of a barracks training that could have broken the hardest man.†   (source)
  • Skeg shook his head, his lined face doleful.†   (source)
  • Lorenzo put on something at once bell-like and doleful, by the Modern Jazz Quartet.†   (source)
  • Doc Daneeka had lost his head during Milo's bombardment; instead of running for cover, he had remained out in the open and performed his duty, slithering along the ground through shrapnel, strafing and incendiary bombs like a furtive, wily lizard from casualty to casualty, administering tourniquets, morphine, splints and sulfanilamide with a dark and doleful visage, never saying one word more than he had to and reading in each man's bluing wound a dreadful portent of his own decay.†   (source)
  • Maybe my dad's right, I find myself thinking dolefully.†   (source)
  • They chewed khat and smoked 555s and despite their doleful, muddy eyes they were happy.†   (source)
  • It was for a laugh, for a laugh, all the kids had laughed and laughed, and the droll tuba player of the old Elk's band had rendered it solo on his helical horn; with comical flourishes and doleful phrasing, "Boo boo boo booooo, Poor Robin clean"-a mock funeral dirge ….†   (source)
  • O Doleful!†   (source)
  • The first boats cautiously, dolefully lumbered out to the favored fishing grounds, for the catch of the day meant one more day's survival.†   (source)
  • The heavy church door thudded shut behind us, cutting off the doleful singing.†   (source)
  • The grandmother took Helene away from the soft lights and flowered carpets of the Sundown House and raised her under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary, counseling her to be constantly on guard for any sign of her mother's wild blood.†   (source)
  • I said, having some difficulty imagining the ebullient Renny Banerjee sitting in a darkened room, dolefully rubbing his face.†   (source)
  • Dolefully I thought of Abraham and Isaac.†   (source)
  • A place for doleful creatures, a dance of satyrs.†   (source)
  • He glanced dolefully at Jordan.†   (source)
  • It was already dusk, the first stars coming out in the sky; and on the table was set a hurricane lamp, whose low dull flame looked a doleful bird caught in a glass cage.†   (source)
  • his mind began dolefully telling him that he was on a wild goose chase.   (source)
    dolefully = full of sadness
  • Sue smiled dolefully.   (source)
  • You sound as doleful as a funeral...   (source)
    doleful = sad
  • [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.   (source)
  • Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,   (source)
  • The bell continued to swing, strike, and vibrate, with the same doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb.   (source)
  • Her doleful story of ruin did not sound so sad to those who had never had anything.
  • Your father, Mr. David, was a kind gentleman; but he was weak, dolefully weak;   (source)
    dolefully = sadly (in a manner that is full of sadness)
  • He has been very silent and doleful of late.   (source)
    doleful = full of sadness
  • The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition ... partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations,   (source)
    doleful = sad
  • They are young,' said a slow, doleful voice from behind Harry.†   (source)
  • I look at his doleful eyes and feel contempt.†   (source)
  • At the same moment the doleful music stopped.†   (source)
  • Doleful!" scrawled Chaplain Philip Fithian in his diary, expressing only the obvious.†   (source)
  • "Not well at all," he replied dolefully, holding out one anna.†   (source)
  • Rita's book lay on the ground between them, so that the face of Albus Dumbledore smiled dolefully at both.†   (source)
  • Looking once about the room, the old Greek raised his hands to acknowledge the doleful impermanence of circumstances, "Perhaps you are looking for access to some …. capital?" he ventured.†   (source)
  • When they're hired for the job they teach them that expression, remote but doleful, like a dark blank bell.†   (source)
  • Hedwig and Pigwidgeon hooted dolefully.†   (source)
  • He had expected Hedwig to hold out her leg so that he could remove the letter and then fly off to the Owlery but the moment the window was open wide enough she hopped inside, hooting dolefully.†   (source)
  • The white raven circled once over Islanzadi's body and uttered a doleful cry, then flew slowly toward the breach in the outer wall, the feathers of its wounded wing red and crumpled.†   (source)
  • But as I go to put it back down again, he looks so doleful I feel sorry for him and turn it over to look at the price, thinking if it's a fiver I'll buy it.†   (source)
  • 'Oh shitfire,' Roscoe said dolefully.†   (source)
  • She snickered dolefully.†   (source)
  • Doleful!†   (source)
  • The grey, doleful lamps were still burning and by their light they had no difficulty in passing gallery after gallery and descending stairway after stairway.†   (source)
  • 'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride.†   (source)
  • He shook his head dolefully.†   (source)
  • Still she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of objects to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr. Ramsay stood there, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass and discolour it, and cast over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented figure of Mr. Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil of crape, as if such an existence, flaunting its prosperity in a world of woe, were enough to provoke the most dismal thoughts of all.†   (source)
  • Ah no! but the two halves of the prophecy were there together, the Chaldee beauties and the wild beasts and doleful creatures shared the same houses together.†   (source)
  • Where once the horrible lepers—they called them Measles—had been accustomed to ramble through the woods in white cowls, ringing their doleful clappers if they wanted to give warning, or just pouncing on you without ringing them if they did not, now there were proper hospitals, governed by religious orders of knighthood, to look after those who had come back sick with leprosy from the Crusades.†   (source)
  • "Someone must show some wit," Settembrini said, gazing dolefully into the air.†   (source)
  • From which presently she sent out the most doleful moans.†   (source)
  • The beast sat down on his haunches and, lifting a lean head, sent up a doleful howl.†   (source)
  • She planned to enact the word doleful, with a beggar asking a dole, and a corncrib full.†   (source)
  • The men's faces grew doleful from the interpreting of omens.†   (source)
  • Crouched against a tree-trunk, he sniffed dolefully.†   (source)
  • For Boris, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp.†   (source)
  • In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected conversation: "Oh!†   (source)
  • He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches nowadays.†   (source)
  • Alas that ever I should see this doleful day.†   (source)
  • Such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back!†   (source)
  • She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.†   (source)
  • "This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the trade," said Haley, dolefully.†   (source)
  • "Are we grown old again, so soon?" cried they, dolefully.†   (source)
  • Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth?†   (source)
  • 'Must I go?' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him.†   (source)
  • A doleful place to be born and bred in, Tattycoram?'†   (source)
  • There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral!†   (source)
  • Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows.†   (source)
  • "Well!" said he,— this was his doleful refrain,—"he will not return!"†   (source)
  • And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying him in a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it!†   (source)
  • If he does go, the change will be doleful.†   (source)
  • It was the twin of the doleful chamber of a German grocer whom he had seen during a consultation a month ago.†   (source)
  • "I have a little thing here, you're sure to like," the 'manageress' would greet him, and he would stay for an hour or so, talking dolefully to some poor girl who sat there astonished that he went no further.†   (source)
  • He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold--but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few other particulars of that sort, in the manner of a criminal making a reluctant and doleful confession.†   (source)
  • So it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful face.†   (source)
  • "Oh, well, just the same, a hundred and fifty dollars is more than I can pay," commented Hortense dolefully, at the same time slipping on her old broadcloth jacket with the fur collar and cuffs, and edging toward the door.†   (source)
  • "It do seem more like April than September, don't it?" continued Mr. Hempseed, dolefully, as a shower of raindrops fell with a sizzle upon the fire.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully.†   (source)
  • He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves."†   (source)
  • And some of them dated so recently as May 10th, May 15th, May 26th, or up to the very time at which, as he instantly noted, Roberta's most doleful letters began to arrive.†   (source)
  • "Badly, my lord, badly," replied Mr. Hempseed, dolefully, "but what can you 'xpect with this 'ere government favourin' them rascals over in France, who would murder their king and all their nobility."†   (source)
  • This simple ceremony over, one of the boys put wood on the fire, and Snap took a jews'-harp out of his pocket and began to extract doleful discords from it, for which George kicked at him in disgust, finally causing him to leave the circle and repair to the cedars, where he twanged with supreme egotism.†   (source)
  • "I do NOT like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white diamonds with a sigh.†   (source)
  • [58] One sent forth the praises of Athelstane in a doleful panegyric; another, in a Saxon genealogical poem, rehearsed the uncouth and harsh names of his noble ancestry.†   (source)
  • I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and conning tomorrow's lessons.†   (source)
  • Me liketh thy mood-heart, The longer the better, O Beowulf the lief; In such wise hast thou fared, that unto the folks now, The folk of the Geats and the Gar-Danes withal, In common shall peace be, and strife rest appeased And the hatreds the doleful which erst they have dreed; Shall become, whiles I wield it, this wide realm of ours, Treasures common to either folk: many a one other 1860 With good things shall greet o'er the bath of the gannet; And the ring'd bark withal over sea…†   (source)
  • The beauty straightway vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress,[657] a probation, beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam's fall[658] and curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial[659] and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener sank in them.†   (source)
  • The prologue stopped short, and all heads turned tumultuously towards the beggar, who, far from being disconcerted by this, saw, in this incident, a good opportunity for reaping his harvest, and who began to whine in a doleful way, half closing his eyes the while,—"Charity, please!"†   (source)
  • So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself— upstairs, downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber.†   (source)
  • The boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forbode evil to come.†   (source)
  • The clock of the Invalides struck a quarter to twelve; the west wind bore on its moistened gusts the doleful vibration of the three strokes.†   (source)
  • …bishops' croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,—like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite,—snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third shearers, who travelled in…†   (source)
  • "There you go!" resumed Mrs. Poyser, in a cutting tone, as she rose and went towards the cupboard while Molly began dolefully to pick up the fragments of pottery.†   (source)
  • At the same time, Thenardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness lighting up the edge of the sky in doleful wise.†   (source)
  • Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in.†   (source)
  • It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, 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.†   (source)
  • Montcalm has got him, and with the accursed politeness of his nation, he has sent him in with a doleful tale, of 'knowing how I valued the fellow, he could not think of retaining him.'†   (source)
  • The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate.†   (source)
  • The bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the bull-frog croaked dolefully from a neighboring pool.†   (source)
  • "I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks, and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end," he said dolefully.†   (source)
  • Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.†   (source)
  • You were in such very good spirits that I thought you might grant my little favor then; not that you look particularly doleful now.†   (source)
  • Consulting Mr. Bunyan's road-book, I perceived that we must now be within a few miles of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much sooner than seemed at all desirable.†   (source)
  • The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears.†   (source)
  • Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung.†   (source)
  • Having delivered this observation in a very grievous and doleful tone, Newman reached the door in one long limp, and came back again in another.†   (source)
  • I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!†   (source)
  • On this head she knew by prevision what most women learn only by experience: she had mentally walked round love, told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that love was but a doleful joy.†   (source)
  • The house stood at one of the principal corners in the village; and by its well-trodden doorway, as well as the sign that was swinging with a kind of doleful sound in the blasts that occasionally swept down the lake, was clearly one of the most frequented inns in the place.†   (source)
  • I had scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region of air, wailing dolefully.†   (source)
  • A bailiff banded the dead leaf to the crocodile, who made a doleful shake of the head, and passed it on to the president, who gave it to the procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical court, and thus it made the circuit of the hail.†   (source)
  • She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband: "Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our—all the children's property!†   (source)
  • 'More than once I remember'—he rested his cheek dolefully on his hand—'I sought thy praise and the hakim's for the mere strength of my legs.†   (source)
  • A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him.†   (source)
  • These were freaks of imagination--nothing more, certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be heartily ashamed of; but all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams.†   (source)
  • And there was such a solemn melody, 'Twixt doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,— Such as old grandames, watching by the dead, Are wont to outwear the night with.†   (source)
  • There is something of a doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me — I don't know when, but apparently ages ago — about my father's funeral, and the company having their black cloaks put on.†   (source)
  • As usual, the fever had subsided, the dream had gone off, and the imaginary fortunes with it; the patients were left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the consequent cry of "hard times."†   (source)
  • The bell that rings at nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge.†   (source)
  • —and the woman laughed a wild and doleful laugh, that rung, with a strange, supernatural sound, through the old ruined shed.†   (source)
  • Here is the Tale of Troy,[533] which the audience will bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Caesar,[534] and other stories out of Plutarch,[535] which they never tire of; a shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut[536] and Arthur,[537] down to the royal Henries,[538] which men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,[539] and Spanish voyages,[540] which all the London prentices know.†   (source)
  • 'The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch: Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual; owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm.†   (source)
  • We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived.†   (source)
  • He never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings.†   (source)
  • I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, 1767.†   (source)
  • The expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity.†   (source)
  • If the philosopher succeeds in fixing, for a moment, for purposes of observation, this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls into doleful and useful meditation.†   (source)
  • I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals.†   (source)
  • What a doleful night!†   (source)
  • The pensive, reflective tone in which this was spoken appeared to amuse Andy prodigiously, and he drew a little behind, and shook so as apparently to run a great risk of failing off his horse, while Sam's face was immovably composed into the most doleful gravity.†   (source)
  • The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance.†   (source)
  • When donning his uniform of a National Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed as he was, to take his pocket-book.†   (source)
  • In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round.†   (source)
  • I picture myself with my books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary.†   (source)
  • Parasite little tenements, with the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door on the giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window of the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening doleful.†   (source)
  • The "young un" alluded to heard all these comments with the subdued and doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only scanning, with a keen and furtive glance of her flickering eyes, the ornaments which Jane wore in her ears.†   (source)
  • After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated.†   (source)
  • And his meditation turning to a reproach, fell back upon himself; he reflected dolefully on his idleness, his paralysis of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing more dense every moment before him, to such a point that he no longer even saw the sun.†   (source)
  • The coach jolts, I wake with a start, and the flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is sitting with his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on delighted.†   (source)
  • Zephine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed English poses; the first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men; and the hair of the tender sex began to droop dolefully.†   (source)
  • Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the appearance of deformity and distortion, as, with his back humped up, and his master's stick in his hand, he hobbled about the room, his childish face drawn into a doleful pucker, and spitting from right to left, in imitation of an old man.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her brother's rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful changes, she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada.†   (source)
  • In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror and despair.†   (source)
  • If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched.†   (source)
  • All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody had said something.†   (source)
  • It was a wild, forsaken road, now winding through dreary pine barrens, where the wind whispered mournfully, and now over log causeways, through long cypress swamps, the doleful trees rising out of the slimy, spongy ground, hung with long wreaths of funeral black moss, while ever and anon the loathsome form of the mocassin snake might be seen sliding among broken stumps and shattered branches that lay here and there, rotting in the water.†   (source)
  • Alas that ever I should see this doleful day, for now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end.†   (source)
  • So thus they rode until that they came to Humber bank, where they heard a cry and a doleful noise.†   (source)
  • Right so as Sir Dinadan rode in the even late he heard a doleful noise as it were of a man.†   (source)
  • And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them; you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous, than him who holds his peace.†   (source)
  • So they went unto battle again, and wounded everych other dolefully, and then they breathed ofttimes, and so went unto battle that all the place there as they fought was blood red.†   (source)
  • And when it was read, the king, the queen, and all the knights wept for pity of the doleful complaints.†   (source)
  • And when he waked it were hard any tongue to tell the doleful complaints that he made for his brother.†   (source)
  • Then was he ware of a knight that stood under a tree, and his horse tied by him, and the helm off his head; and ever that knight made a doleful complaint as ever made knight.†   (source)
  • O Jesu! said Sir Gawaine, this is a doleful sight, to see the yonder knight so to be entreated, and it seemeth by the knight that he suffereth them to bind him so, for he maketh no resistance.†   (source)
  • Ah, Launcelot, said the king, the great love that I have had unto you all the days of my life maketh me to say such doleful words; for never Christian king had never so many worthy men at his table as I have had this day at the Round Table, and that is my great sorrow.†   (source)
  • …own land; also it was told Sir Launcelot how that Sir Mordred had laid siege about the Tower of London, because the queen would not wed him; then was Sir Launcelot wroth out of measure, and said to his kinsmen: Alas, that double traitor Sir Mordred, now me repenteth that ever he escaped my hands, for much shame hath he done unto my lord Arthur; for all I feel by the doleful letter that my lord Sir Gawaine sent me, on whose soul Jesu have mercy that my lord Arthur is full hard bestead.†   (source)
  • Truly, said Sir Palomides, it grieveth my heart for to hear you tell this doleful tale; and to say the truth I saw the same letter that ye speak of, and one of the best knights on the earth read that letter to me, and by his commandment I came hither to revenge your king's death; and therefore have done, and let me wit where I shall find those traitors, for I shall never be at ease in my heart till I be in hands with them.†   (source)
  • And this doleful letter that my lord, Sir Gawaine, hath sent me afore his death, praying me to see his tomb, wit you well his doleful words shall never go from mine heart, for he was a full noble knight as ever was born; and in an unhappy hour was I born that ever I should have that unhap to slay first Sir Gawaine, Sir Gaheris the good knight, and mine own friend Sir Gareth, that full noble knight.†   (source)
  • So when the queen saw her knights thus dolefully wounded, and needs must be slain at the last, then for pity and sorrow she cried Sir Meliagrance: Slay not my noble knights, and I will go with thee upon this covenant, that thou save them, and suffer them not to be no more hurt, with this, that they be led with me wheresomever thou leadest me, for I will rather slay myself than I will go with thee, unless that these my noble knights may be in my presence.†   (source)
  • And when Sir Tristram came nigh him he descended down from his horse and tied his horse fast till a tree, and then he came near him on foot; and anon he was ware where lay Sir Palomides by the well and sang loud and merrily; and ever the complaints were of that noble queen, La Beale Isoud, the which was marvellously and wonderfully well said, and full dolefully and piteously made.†   (source)
  • When griping grief the heart doth wound,
    And doleful dumps the mind oppress,   (source)
    doleful = full of sadness
  • Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!   (source)
  • 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.   (source)
  • At the ending-stave then it after befalleth That the shell of his body sinks fleeting away, And falleth all fey; and another one fetcheth, E'en one that undolefully dealeth the treasure, The earl's gains of aforetime, and fear never heedeth.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in undolefully means not and reverses the meaning of dolefully. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.†   (source)
  • Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.†   (source)
  • Right so as Sir Dinadan rode in the even late he heard a doleful noise as it were of a man.†   (source)
  • Alas that ever I should see this doleful day, for now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end.†   (source)
  • What doleful clamors from the town arise?†   (source)
  • So thus they rode until that they came to Humber bank, where they heard a cry and a doleful noise.†   (source)
  • A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.†   (source)
  • A devil is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the doleful road, because the wounds are closed up ere one passes again before him.†   (source)
  • Sancho was the first to come to, and finding himself close to his master he called to him in a weak and doleful voice, "Senor Don Quixote, ah, Senor Don Quixote!"†   (source)
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