Word.ws English Dictionary

death wail

death wail noun: an intense mournful cry given by mourners upon someone's death.

Noun

death wail (plural death wails)

  1. An intense mournful cry given by mourners upon someone's death.
    • A sudden, long-drawn howl curdled out from across the river. A human dingo might had made such an awful sound. Merry threw out helpless hands. ‘He’s gone!’ he said. ‘The death-wail. I’ve been listening for that all the morning.’1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 214

Forms of death wail

pluraldeath wails
alternative formdeath-wail

Questions about death wail

What does death wail mean?
Death wail means an intense mournful cry given by mourners upon someone's death.
What part of speech is death wail?
Death wail is a noun.
What is the plural of death wail?
The plural of death wail is death wails.

Words near death wail in the dictionary

  1. death trap
  2. death traps
  3. Death Valley
  4. Death Valley driver
  5. Death Valley drivers
  6. death wail
  7. death wails
  8. death warmed over
  9. death warmed up
  10. death warrant
  11. death warrants

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: death wail (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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