668: woebegone Oct 6, 2016

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There are plenty of words that people use which would have made sense for people speaking Old English, but not for people nowadays, such as 'egg on' which you can see here. In this same way, 'woebegone' is not wishing someone's woe will be gone, and quite contrary to logic means 'sorrowful'. While the aspect of 'woe' has not changed over the years, the '-begone' suffix does not have the meaning that 'begone' has today. Instead, this was a past participle of 'began' meaning 'beset', i.e. someone beset with woe.

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