cry

English

Etymology

From Middle English crien, from Old French crier (“to announce publicly, proclaim, scream, shout”) (whence Medieval Latin crīdō (“to cry out, shout, publish, proclaim”)), from Frankish *krītan (“to cry, cry out, publish”), from Proto-Germanic *krītaną (“to cry out, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *greyd- (“to shout”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian kriete (“to cry”), Dutch krijten (“to cry”) and krijsen (“to shriek”), German Low German krieten (“to cry, call out, shriek”), German kreißen (“to cry loudly, wail, groan”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kreitan, “to cry, scream, call out”), Latin gingrītus (“the cackling of geese”), Middle Irish grith (“a cry”), Welsh gryd (“a scream”).

etymology note

Alternate etymology connects the Medieval Latin word to Latin queror (“to complain”) through the form quiritō (“to wail, shriek”), though the phonetic and semantic developments are difficult to trace.

Middle English crien eventually displaced native Middle English galen (“to cry out”) (from Old English galan), Middle English greden (“to cry out”) (from Old English grǣdan), Middle English yermen (“to bellow, mourn, lament”) (from Old English ġierman), Middle English hooen, hoen (“to cry out”) (from Old Norse hóa), Middle English remen (“to cry, shout”) (from Old English hrīeman, compare Old English hrēam (“noise, outcry, lamentation, alarm”)), Middle English greten, graten (“to weep, cry, lament”) (from Old English grǣtan and Old Norse gráta). More at greet, regret.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /kɹaɪ̯/
  • Audio (USA)(file)
  • Audio(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪ

Verb

cry (third-person singular simple present cries, present participle crying, simple past and past participle cried)

a woman crying (1)
  1. (intransitive) To shed tears; to weep.
    That sad movie always makes me cry.
  2. (transitive) To utter loudly; to call out; to declare publicly.
    • Shakespeare
      All, all, cry shame against ye, yet I'll speak.
    • Bunyan
      The man […] ran on, crying, Life! life! Eternal life!
  3. (transitive, intransitive) To shout, scream, yell.
    • Bible, Matthew xxvii. 46
      And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice.
  4. (intransitive) To utter inarticulate sounds, as animals do.
    • Bible, Psalms cxlvii. 9
      the young ravens which cry
    • Shakespeare
      In a cowslip's bell I lie / There I couch when owls do cry.
  5. (transitive) To cause to do something, or bring to some state, by crying or weeping.
    Tonight I'll cry myself to sleep.
  6. To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, etc.
    to cry goods
    • Crashaw
      Love is lost, and thus she cries him.
  7. Hence, to publish the banns of, as for marriage.
    • Judd
      I should not be surprised if they were cried in church next Sabbath.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms
Terms derived from cry (verb)

Translations

Noun

cry (plural cries)

  1. A shedding of tears; the act of crying.
    After we broke up, I retreated to my room for a good cry.
  2. A shout or scream.
    I heard a cry from afar.
  3. Words shouted or screamed.
    a battle cry
  4. A clamour or outcry.
    • 1812, Alexander Chalmers, The General Biographical Dictionary
      His pupil, Maimonides, that he might not be under the necessity of violating the laws of friendship and gratitude, by joining the general cry against Averroes, left Corduba.
  5. (collectively) A group of hounds.
    • Shakespeare
      A cry more tunable / Was never hollaed to, nor cheered with horn.
    • 1667, Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, in Edward Hawkins, The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors, Vol. I, W. Baxter, J. Parker, G. B. Whittaker (publs., 1824) pages 124 to 126, lines 648 to 659.
      […] Before the gates there sat / On either side a formidable shape; / The one seem’d woman to the waste, and fair, / But ended foul in many a scaly fold / Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm’d / With mortal sting: about her middle round / A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark’d / With wide Cerberean mouths full loud and rung / A hideous peal; yet, when they list,would creep, / If ought disturb'd their noise, into her womb, / and kennel there, yet there still bark’d and howl’d, / Within unseen. […]
  6. (by extension, obsolete, derogatory) A pack or company of people.
    • Shakespeare
      Would not this […] get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
  7. (of an animal) A typical sound made by the species in question.
    "Woof" is the cry of a dog, while "neigh" is the cry of a horse.
  8. A desperate or urgent request.
  9. (obsolete) Common report; gossip.
    • Shakespeare
      The cry goes that you shall marry her.

Derived terms

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

References
  • cry in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
  • cry in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
  • cry in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French cri.

Noun

cry m (plural crys)

  1. cry; shout

Descendants

Scots

Verb

cry (third-person singular present cries, present participle cryin, past cried, past participle cried)

  1. to call, to give a name to
    • A body whit studies the history is cried a historian an aw.
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