Word.ws English Dictionary

cry havoc

cry havoc verb: to shout out 'Havoc!'; that is, to give an army the order to plunder.

Verb

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

  1. (obsolete) To shout out 'Havoc!'; that is, to give an army the order to plunder.
    • Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Do not cry havoc, where you should but huntc. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Forms of cry havoc

third-person singular presentcries havoc
present participlecrying havoc
past participlecried havoc
pastcried havoc

Origin of cry havoc

From Middle English, from the Anglo-Norman phrase crier havok (“cry havoc”) (a signal to soldiers to seize plunder), from Old French crier (“cry out, shout”) + havot (“pillaging, looting”).

Questions about cry havoc

What does cry havoc mean?
Cry havoc means to shout out 'Havoc!'; that is, to give an army the order to plunder.
What part of speech is cry havoc?
Cry havoc is a verb.
What is the past tense of cry havoc?
The past tense of cry havoc is cried havoc.

Words near cry havoc in the dictionary

  1. cry from the housetops
  2. cry from the rooftop
  3. cry from the rooftops
  4. cry halves
  5. cry harder
  6. cry havoc
  7. cry in one's beer
  8. cry in the wilderness
  9. cry into one's beer
  10. cry it out
  11. cry like a baby

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cry havoc (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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