different between mournful vs wailful

English

Alternative forms

• mournfull

Etymology

mourn +? -ful

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m??nf?l/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m??nf?l/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?mo(?)?nf?l/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?mo?nf?l/
• Hyphenation: mourn?ful

Adjective

mournful (comparative mournfuller or more mournful, superlative mournfullest or most mournful)

1. Filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns.
2. Fit to inspire mourning; tragic.
   • 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

     Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:sad

Translations

English

Etymology

From wail +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?we?lf?l/

Adjective

wailful (comparative more wailful, superlative most wailful)

1. (chiefly poetic) Sorrowful; mournful.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

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

   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, First Folio 1623:

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