wail

• enPR: wāl, IPA^(key): /weɪl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: wale
• Homophone: whale (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

c. 1300, Middle English weilen, waylen (“to sob, cry, wail”),[1] from Old Norse væla (“to wail”),[2] from væ, vei (“woe”),[3] from Proto-Germanic *wai (whence also Old English wā (“woe”) (English woe)), from Proto-Indo-European *wai.

The verb is first attested in the intransitive sense; the transitive sense developed in mid-14^th c.. The noun came from the verb.

wail (third-person singular simple present wails, present participle wailing, simple past and past participle wailed)

1. (intransitive) To cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.
2. (intransitive) To weep, lament persistently or bitterly.
3. (intransitive) To make a noise like mourning or crying.

   The wind wailed and the rain streamed down.

4. (transitive) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over.

   to wail one's death

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

5. (slang, music) To perform with great liveliness and force.
   • 1999, Lewis A. Erenberg, Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture, page 111:

     At Boston's Roseland, as "the Count's band was wailing," he grabbed Mamie, an avid dancer. The "band was screaming when she kicked off her shoes and got barefooted

   • 2012, Robert Lewis Barrett, A Portrait of the First Born As a Child, page 377:

     The band was really wailing as we quickly made our dance moves in a most provocative manner.

   • 2013, Joan Silber, Fools, →ISBN:

     We had a nondenominational wedding, with a bunch of great Sufi musicians really wailing, and my wildly enthusiastic mother in attendance.

• bewail
• wailer
• wailingly

wail (plural wails)

1. A prolonged cry, usually high-pitched, especially as of grief or anguish. [from 15^th c.]

   She let out a loud, doleful wail.

2. Any similar sound as of lamentation; a howl.

   The wail of snow-dark winter winds.

   A bird's wail in the night.

3. A sound made by emergency vehicle sirens, contrasted with "yelp" which is higher-pitched and faster.

From Old Norse val (“choice”). Compare Icelandic velja (“to choose”). More at wale.

wail (third-person singular simple present wails, present participle wailing, simple past and past participle wailed)

1. (obsolete) Synonym of wale (“to choose; to select”)
   • Henryson:

     Wailed wine and meats

• wail in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• wail in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• wail at OneLook Dictionary Search

• wali, wila, wāli

wail

1. water

• James T. Collins, The Historical Relationships of the Languages of Central Maluku, Indonesia (1983), page 70

Blend of wala (“not”) +‎ ilhi (“known, recognized”)

• (General Cebuano) IPA^(key): /ˈwaˌil̪/
• Rhymes: -il̪
• Hyphenation: wa‧il

wail

1. an insignificant person
2. an unknown person or thing
3. an unknown celebrity or politician