wail
/weɪl
/noun
1A prolonged high-pitched cry of pain, grief, or anger: Christopher let out a wail...
- Naaz Hosseini's voice slips from a serene hum to a full-throated wail to a sweet high-pitched lilt, flavored by her roots in Armenia and Persia.
- A peacock's sharp wail pierced the music.
- This is a column about New Labour's complete failure to publicise its many progressive achievements, while screeching out its reactionary policies in a ceaseless wail.
Synonyms
howl, bawl, yowl, keening;
cry, cry of grief, cry of pain, lament, lamentation, sob, moan, groan;
shriek, scream, yelp, bellow, roar, caterwaul;
whine, complaint, whimper
rare ululation
1.1A prolonged high-pitched sound: the wail of an air-raid siren...
- The end of the working day in the tea garden is marked by the wail of an air-raid siren.
- She pressed her remote control gadget and the car burst into siren wails with lights flashing.
- The pow-pow-pow of gunshots was a familiar sound, as was the wail of police sirens.
verb [no object]
1Utter a wail: Tina ran off wailing [with direct speech]: ‘But why?’ she wailed...
- Then more towers of smoke were climbing toward the sky; screams wailed across the fields.
- She wailed something in a language I couldn't recognise and struck a pose.
- I was standing in the cold, bare hallway of a hospital, listening to my child wail and scream from behind a closed door.
1.1Make a prolonged high-pitched sound: the wind wailed and buffeted the timber structure (as adjective wailing) wailing sirens...
- A horrible siren sound wailed across the boat and suddenly, men and weapons erupted on deck.
- He really made that guitar wail, though.
- If this had been a movie, there would have been a sax wailing in the background.
1.2 [with object] literary Manifest or feel deep sorrow for; lament: she wailed her wretched life...
- He wrenches his hands in agony, and again again looks up to heaven, wailing his fate.
Derivatives
wailer
- With a nod to the Faces, the Stones, James Brown and other legendary wailers, Foreman is a wiggly protagonist of modern day hot.
- Hands down, she is one of the most riveting wailers around.
- There will be many more wailers if plans go through to close Garda stations at night to put more members of the force on the streets.
wailful
- When Sidney wrote his sonnets she was in the prime of her beauty, and he may well have been sincere in deploring the loss of such a prize, and praying in wailful sonnets that he might continue to have a place in her affections.
- It was obvious the ghost was heartbroken and she gave out a wailful cry to let the world know of her misery.
- It was on such a night accompanied by such wailful sounds that my birthday arrived: sixty.
wailingly
- They did this to me once before when they stopped making the colours of eye shadow that I had worn for 5 years - and when I wailingly told the shop girl this fact she said, ‘well its time for a change then isn't it?’
- They were loud, wailingly loud, high pitched, moving up and down in a way that many people could not explain, sometimes going soft and then piercingly high and loud again.
- It should be pointed out here that Totti was wailingly remorseful about it all: so much so that he took refuge in the third person, never a good sign.
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse; related to woe.