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Meanings of doleful in English

Feeling mentally uncomfortable because something is missing or wrong.

Usage of doleful in English
1
And listening I could head a doleful pealing in the grey sky.
The Untilled Field
2
Having intoned the two lines the flock took up the doleful dirge.
Blue Ridge Country
3
Nor were they in this doleful condition allowed a sufficiency of water.
American Prisoners of the Revolution
4
And so he put me here.' I gave Barak a doleful smile.
Sovereign
5
At last there came the long-drawn, doleful note of the screech owl.
The High School Boys' Fishing Trip
6
Then he would face the crowd again, and repeat his doleful cry:
Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine
7
I could almost sigh at the very remembrance of that doleful Polonaise.
Vivian Grey
8
But probably the King would not visit that decayed and doleful spot.
Sovereign
9
The army entered the doleful solitude, hideous to sight, hideous to memory.
The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus; /...
10
Pedro's face was doleful in the extreme, and not at all reassuring.
Carried Off: A Story of Pirate Times
11
Somewhere about after that Merrifield niece with the doleful name, I fancy.
The Long Vacation
12
Had both gone, he would have had a doleful time of it.
The Girl at Cobhurst
13
A few emitted a doleful sort of sound almost like a cry.
A Little Girl in Old New York
14
Katrina sounded so doleful that he had to look up at her.
The Emperor of Portugallia
15
Somewhere a cloister bell was ringing, a lost and lonely, doleful sound.
Something from the nightside
16
Bosja felt it, and believing himself seriously wounded, uttered a doleful howl.
Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks / Book Number Fifteen...
About this term
More collocations
Doleful through the time
Doleful across language varieties
United Kingdom
Common
United States of America
Rare