woe is me

Значение (Английский)

Used to show that the speaker feels distress or misery.

Синонимы

woe

oh no

ah

Переводы

οίμοι

o weh

weh mir

ai de mim

ay de mí

Произносится как (IPA)

/ˌwəʊ ɪz ˈmiː/

Этимология (Английский)

Родственно немецкий: Weh ist mir

Родственно идиш: וויי איז מיר

In summary

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.