weep
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English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]From Middle English wepen, from Old English wēpan (“to weep, complain, bewail, mourn over, deplore”), from Proto-West Germanic *wōpijan, from Proto-Germanic *wōpijaną (“to weep”), from Proto-Indo-European *weh₂b- (“to call, cry, complain”).
Cognate with Scots wepe, weip (“to weep”), Saterland Frisian wapia (“to cry, complain”), Icelandic æpa (“to yell, shout”).
Verb
[edit]weep (third-person singular simple present weeps, present participle weeping, simple past and past participle wept or (poetic, otherwise nonstandard) weeped)
- To cry; to shed tears, especially when accompanied with sobbing or other difficulty speaking, as an expression of emotion such as sadness or joy.
- 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, part I:
- They wept together in silence.
- To lament; to complain.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 11:13:
- They weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat.
- To give off moisture in small quantities, e.g. due to condensation.
- (medicine, of a wound or sore) To produce secretions.
- To flow in drops; to run in drops.
- a weeping spring, which discharges water slowly
- c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
- The blood weeps from my heart.
- To hang the branches, as if in sorrow; to be pendent; to droop; said of a plant or its branches.
- (obsolete, transitive) To weep over; to bewail.
- 1717, Matthew Prior, The Dove:
- Fair Venus wept the sad disaster
Of having lost her favorite dove.
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XIII, page 20:
- […] Which weep a loss for ever new,
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
Synonyms
[edit]- See also Thesaurus:weep
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to cry, shed tears
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Noun
[edit]weep (plural weeps)
- A session of crying.
- Sometimes you just have to have a good weep.
- A sob.
- 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Doubleday & McClure, published 1899, page v. 62:
- He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine-cup[.]
Etymology 2
[edit]Imitative of its cry.
Noun
[edit]weep (plural weeps)
- A lapwing; wipe, especially, a northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus).
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