Wiktionary

lamentation

English

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Beweinung Christi (Lamentation of Christ, 1509) by German painter Bernhard Strigel. The lamentation of Christ is a common subject in Christian art, and shows Jesus being mourned by his family and friends after his crucifixion and descent from the Cross.

Etymology

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Recorded since 1375, from Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. Lament is a 16th-century back-formation.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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lamentation (countable and uncountable, plural lamentations)

  1. The act of lamenting.
    • 1922 April, Paul Rosenfeld, “The Water-Colours of John Marin: A Note on the Work of the First American Painter of the Day”, in John Peale Bishop, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 18, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 48, column 2:
      About John Marin, there move sad, disgruntled beings, full of talk and lamentations. [...] They bewail the fact that in America, soil is poor and unconducive to growth, and men remain unmoved by growing green. But Marin persists, and what ebullience and good humour, in the rocky ungentle loam?
  2. A sorrowful cry; a lament.
  3. Specifically, mourning.
  4. lamentatio, (part of) a liturgical Bible text (from the book of Job) and its musical settings, usually in the plural; hence, any dirge
  5. A group of swans.
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Translations

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References

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Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Middle French, from Latin lāmentātiōnem (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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lamentation f (plural lamentations)

  1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint
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Further reading

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Middle French

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Etymology

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From Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Noun

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lamentation f (plural lamentations)

  1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint
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