Word.ws English Dictionary

cry out for

cry out for verb: to be in urgent need (of).

Verb

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

  1. To be in urgent need (of)
    • This state of affairs is crying out for an independent investigation.
    • The pull-out or pull-down tables and litter bins in every compartment and seating bay are amenities which women, particularly those with young children, have been crying out for almost as long as railways have been in operation.1964 July, Mary Allen, “A Woman's View of the New Coaches”, in Modern Railways, page 9

Forms of cry out for

third-person singular presentcries out for
present participlecrying out for
past participlecried out for
pastcried out for

Origin of cry out for

cry + out + for

Questions about cry out for

What does cry out for mean?
Cry out for means to be in urgent need (of).
What part of speech is cry out for?
Cry out for is a verb.
What is the past tense of cry out for?
The past tense of cry out for is cried out for.

Words near cry out for in the dictionary

  1. cry off
  2. cry on
  3. cry one's eyes out
  4. cry oneself to sleep
  5. cry out
  6. cry out for
  7. cry over spilt milk
  8. cry poormouth
  9. cry room
  10. cry rooms
  11. cry someone a river

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cry out for (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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