cry out

cry + out

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

1. To shout in a loud voice, due to pain, or fear, or unhappiness.

   1979, Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

   Do you cry out in your sleep?

   All my failings exposed...

   Gets a taste in my mouth

   As desperation takes hold

   Why is it something so good

   Just can't function no more

   • 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus:

     At the very moment he cried out, David realised that what he had run into was only the Christmas tree.

• See also Thesaurus:shout

• cry out against
• cry out for

• outcry