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Used to show that the speaker feels distress or misery; humorous use usually also signals self-awareness regarding excessive self-pity.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: humorous, sometimes
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Here, the oblique pronoun me denotes not an informal copulative complement (as in this is me), but an indirect object, wherefore it literally means woe is to me, an obsolete way of saying I feel woe; compare German mir ist traurig (“I feel sad”, literally “to-me [it] is sad”). Idiomatically, it means woe is upon me. See also German weh ist mir and its descendant, Yiddish וויי איז מיר (vey iz mir), which are identical in form and meaning to the English expression.
Across languages
Translations
39 source translations are retained for this English entry.
-
Chinese Mandarin:
哀哉
(āizāi)
— interjection
-
Cornish:
go vy
— interjection
-
Dutch:
wee mij
— interjection
-
Esperanto:
ve al mi
— interjection
-
Finnish:
voi minua
— interjection
-
French:
pauvre de moi
— interjection
-
German:
weh mir
— interjection
-
Greek:
οίμοι
(oímoi)
— interjection
-
Ancient Greek:
οἴμοι
(oímoi)
— interjection
-
Hebrew:
אוֹי לִי
(oy li)
— interjection
-
Hungarian:
jaj nekem
— interjection
-
Irish:
abhó
— interjection
-
Italian:
ahimè
— interjection
-
Ladino:
guay de mí
— interjection
-
Latin:
mē miserum
— interjection
-
Manx:
voirrey s'treih
— interjection
-
Māori:
koae
— interjection
-
Norwegian Bokmål:
stakkars meg
— interjection
-
Old Norse:
vei mér
— interjection
-
Pannonian Rusyn:
чежко мнє
(čežko mnje)
— interjection
-
Pannonian Rusyn:
яй мнє
(jaj mnje)
— interjection
-
Persian:
وای من
(vây-e man)
— interjection
-
Polish:
biada mi
— interjection
-
Portuguese:
ai de mim
— interjection
-
Romanian:
vai de mine
— interjection
-
Romanian:
vai mie
— interjection
-
Russian:
го́ре мне
(góre mne)
— interjection
-
Scottish Gaelic:
mo thruaighe
— interjection
-
Scottish Gaelic:
a thruaighe
— interjection
-
Spanish:
ay de mí
— interjection
-
Spanish:
pobre de mí
— interjection
-
Spanish:
aymé
— interjection
-
Spanish:
ay me
— interjection
-
Swedish:
stackars mig!
— interjection
-
Yiddish:
אַ בראָך איז מיר
(a brokh iz mir)
— interjection
-
Yiddish:
אַ קלאָג איז מיר
(a klog iz mir)
— interjection
-
Yiddish:
וויי איז מיר
(vey iz mir)
— interjection
-
Yiddish:
וויי איז צו מיר
(vey iz tsu mir)
— interjection
-
Yiddish:
ווינד איז מיר
(vind iz mir)
— interjection
