Word.ws English Dictionary

crying havoc

crying havoc is the present participle and gerund of cry havoc.

Meaning of cry havoc

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]...

Questions about crying havoc

What is crying havoc the present participle and gerund of?
Crying havoc is the present participle and gerund of cry havoc.

Words near crying havoc in the dictionary

  1. crying from the rooftop
  2. crying from the rooftops
  3. crying game
  4. crying games
  5. crying halves
  6. crying havoc
  7. crying in one's beer
  8. crying it out
  9. crying like a baby
  10. crying like a little girl
  11. crying off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crying havoc (page history and authors); 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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