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Woe vs Warn - What's the difference?

woe | warn |

As a noun woe

is grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.

As an adjective woe

is (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful.

As a verb warn is

to make (someone) aware of impending danger etc or warn can be (label) to refuse, deny (someone something).

woe

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.
  • * Milton
    • Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe , she took.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • [They] weep each other's woe .
  • A curse; a malediction.
  • * South
    • Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?

    Derived terms

    * in weal or woe * woeful * woe is me

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful
  • * Robert of Brunne
    • His clerk was woe to do that deed.
  • * Chaucer
    • Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.
  • * Spenser
    • And looking up he waxed wondrous woe .

    Anagrams

    *

    warn

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) warnian, from (etyl) . Cognate with German warnen, Dutch waarnen.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make (someone) aware of impending danger etc.
    • We waved a flag to warn the oncoming traffic.
  • To caution (someone) against unwise or unacceptable behaviour.
    • He was warned against crossing the railway tracks at night.
    Don't let me catch you running in the corridor again, I warn you.
  • To notify (someone) of something untoward.
    • I phoned to warn him of the rail strike.
  • To give warning.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, tr. Bible , Galatians II, 9-10:
    • then Iames Cephas and Iohn [...] agreed with vs that we shuld preache amonge the Hethen and they amonge the Iewes: warnynge only that we shulde remember the poore.
  • * 1973 , Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow , Penguin 1995, p. 177:
    • She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a different name to warn that they might not come true [...].
  • * 1988 , Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses , Picador 2000, p. 496:
    • She warned that he was seriously thinking of withdrawing his offer to part the waters, ‘so that all you'll get at the Arabian Sea is a saltwater bath [...]’.
  • * 1991 , Clive James, ‘Making Programmes the World Wants’, The Dreaming Swimmer , Jonathan Cape 1992:
    • Every country has its resident experts who warn that imported television will destroy the national consciousness and replace it with Dallas'', ''The Waltons'', ''Star Trek'' and ''Twin Peaks .
    Usage notes
    * The intransitive sense is considered colloquial by some, and is explicitly proscribed by, for example, the Daily Telegraph style guide (which prefers give warning).
    Derived terms
    * warner * warning * warn off

    Etymology 2

    From a combination of (etyl) wiernan (from (etyl) ; compare Swedish varna).

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (label) To refuse, deny (someone something).
  • *:
  • *:And yf thou warne' her loue she shalle goo dye anone yf thou haue no pyte on her / that sygnefyeth the grete byrd / the whiche shalle make the to ' warne her

    • Anagrams

    * English reporting verbs