a. Chiefly poet. [f. WAIL sb. + -FUL.]
1. Of cries, complaints, speeches: Having the character of a wail, expressive of grievous pain or sorrow. Of sounds: Resembling a wail, plaintive.
1544. Betham, Precepts War, I. clxiii. H vj. Suche owtecryes and waylefull lamentation of women.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. Eclog. (1912), 348. Zelmane, whose harte better delighted in wailefull ditties.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., III. ii. 69. You must lay Lime, to tangle her desires By walefull Sonnets.
1632. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 105. A voice not shreeking or displeasing, but moaning and wailefull.
c. 1750. Shenstone, Elegy, iv. 28. Then … Shall … Innocence indulge a wailful cry.
1834. Beckford, Italy, etc., II. 283. Her maids sang tirannas with a wailful monotony that wore my very soul out.
1899. R. Whiteing, No. 5 John St., xiv. 140. The wailful sweetness of the violin Floats down the hushéd waters of the wind.
1906. Sat. Rev., 24 March, 361/1. Everyone … was indulging in the vociferous brogue and wailful Irish melody.
2. Full of lamentation, sorrowful.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Feb., 82. Thy Ewes … Like wailefull widdowes hangen their crags.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Love & Honour, 21. She, she alone, amid the wailful train Of captive maids, assigned to Henry’s care.
1855. M. Arnold, Balder Dead, I. 176. Then must he not regard the wailful ghosts.
1865. G. Meredith, Farina, 6. A wailful host were the wives of his raftsmen widowed there by her watery music!
b. transf. Of animals or inanimate things: Producing plaintive sounds.
1818. Keats, Endym., I. 450. A wailful gnat. Ibid. (1820), To Autumn, 27. Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn.
1872. G. Macdonald, Wilf. Cumb., I. xii. 176. A wailful wind made one moaning sweep through the trees.
1885–94. R. Bridges, Eros & Psyche, Sept., 16. Or e’er he join’d his wailful flock.
1887. Meredith, Ballads & Poems, 157. The tremulous Ever-wailful trees bemoaning him.
† 3. Of mournful aspect. Obs.
1557. Phaër, Æneid., VII. (1558), T iv. This dolefull dame vpstertes, with waylful wynges [fuscis … alis].
1577. Grange, Golden Aphrod., E iij. With wailful weeds I clad my corps.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., I. Hist. Eng., 39/2. They fearing punishment … with wailefull countenance craued mercie.
† 4. That is to be bewailed, lamentable. Obs.
a. 1547. Surrey, Eccles. iv. 10. That neuer felt the waylfull wrongs that mortall folke receue. Ibid., Æneid, II. 6. The Phrygian wealth, and wailful realm [L. lamentabile regnum] of Troy.
1566. Gascoigne, Jocasta, I. i. 12. I must to thee recompte The wailefull thing that is alredy spred.
1587. Turberv., Trag. Tales, Ep. Ded. to Baynes. Who knew my cares, who wist my wailefull woe.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. iv. 38. Farre better I it deeme to die with speed, Then waste in woe and wailefull miserie.
c. 1620. Breton, C’tess Pembroke’s Passion (Grosart), 5/2. But if these wept to see his waylefull case: Why dye not I to thinke on his disgrace?
Hence Wailfully adv.
1611. Cotgr., Doloureusement, dolourously; heavily, sorrowfully, wailefully, most wofully.
1879. Meredith, Egoist, II. 217. The glass did not say so, but the shrunken heart within him did, and wailfully too.
1904. Snaith, Broke of Cov., xx. 259. And when bleeding and excoriated past all suffering it does, no voice crying in the wilderness can sound more wailfully to human ears!
