waul
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English wraulen, wrawlen (“cry like a cat; roar”). Compare Danish vræle, vråle, Swedish vråla (“to bellow; roar; howl; yell”).
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
waul (third-person singular simple present wauls, present participle wauling, simple past and past participle wauled)
- To wail, to cry plaintively.
- c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]:
- Thou know’st, the first time that we smell the air, / We waul, and cry.
- 1850, Sylvester Judd, Richard Edney and the Governor's Family, page 298:
- The Catapult wauled, "What if some poor man's dog was saved, — it was his comfort and defence; — he shared with the faithful creature his bread and butter: and when he dies, who watches his grave, — who, if we may so say, sheds a tear for the departed? — who, who, but his dog? […] "
- 2004, Michael Cisco, The San Veneficio Canon, page 75:
- A cattish ghost-familiar wauls from a monument's bronze shoulder, seeing him see it, and he shrieks back in its own language, pulling a face so horrible that pedestrians scatter out of his path, their white cottons flapping.