sing

From Middle English singen, from Old English singan, from Proto-Germanic *singwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷʰ-. Cognate with German singen (“to sing”).

• enPR: sĭng, IPA^(key): /sɪŋ/

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

sing (third-person singular simple present sings, present participle singing, simple past sang, past participle sung or (archaic) sungen)

1. (intransitive) To produce musical or harmonious sounds with one’s voice.

   "I really want to sing in the school choir," said Vera.

2. (transitive) To express audibly by means of a harmonious vocalization.
   • 1852, Mrs M.A. Thompson, “The Tutor's Daughter”, in Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature, Art, and Fashion‎, page 266:

     In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road.

3. (transitive) To soothe with singing.

   to sing somebody to sleep

4. (intransitive, slang) To confess under interrogation.
5. To make a small, shrill sound.

   The air sings in passing through a crevice.

   a singing kettle

   • Alexander Pope

     O'er his head the flying spear / Sang innocent, and spent its force in air.

6. To relate in verse; to celebrate in poetry.
   • Prior

     Bid her […] sing / Of human hope by cross event destroyed.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

7. (intransitive) To display fine qualities; to stand out as excellent.

   The sauce really makes this lamb sing.

8. (ergative) To be capable of being sung; to produce a certain effect by being sung.
   • 1875, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (volume 118, page 685)

     No song sings well unless it is open-vowelled, and has the rhythmic stress on the vowels. Tennyson's songs, for instance, are not generally adapted to music.

• (confess under interrogation): See also Thesaurus:confess and Thesaurus:rat out

• song

sing (plural sings)

1. A gathering at which people sing songs.
   • 2002, Martha Mizell Puckett, Hoyle B. Puckett, Memories of a Georgia Teacher: Fifty Years in the Classroom, page 198:

     Some of the young folks asked Mrs. Long could they have a sing at her home that Sunday afternoon; she readily agreed, telling them to come early, bring their songbooks, and have a good sing.

   • 2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 287:

     'Ah, yes, Miss Fisher, have you had a nice sing?'

• singe

• IGNs, NGIs, gins, ings, nigs, sign, snig

From Dutch zingen.

• IPA^(key): /səŋ/

sing (present sing, present participle singende, past participle gesing)

1. to sing

• gesonge (verbal adjective)

Borrowed from German. First attested in 1368.[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈʃiŋɡ]

sing (plural singek)

1. (archaic) cubit (a unit of linear measure, no longer in use, originally equal to the length of the forearm)

• singcsont