Word.ws English Dictionary

lamentation

/ˌlæm.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/

lamentation noun: the act of lamenting.

lamentation: the act of lamenting
Image: Bernhard Strigel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

lamentation (countable and uncountable, plural lamentations)

  1. The act of lamenting.
    • About John Marin, there move sad, disgruntled beings, full of talk and lamentations. [...] They bewail the fact that in America, soil is poor and unconducive to growth, and men remain unmoved by growing green. But Marin persists, and what ebullience and good humour, in the rocky ungentle loam?1922 April, Paul Rosenfeld, “The Water-Colours of John Marin: A Note on the Work of the First American Painter of the Day”, in John Peale Bishop, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 18, number 2, New York...
  2. A sorrowful cry; a lament.
    Antonyms:
    jubilation
  3. Specifically, mourning.
    Antonyms:
    celebration
  4. lamentatio, (part of) a liturgical Bible text (from the book of Job) and its musical settings, usually in the plural; hence, any dirge
  5. A group of swans.

lamentation meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

lamentation in Hindi

the act of lamenting
विलाप vilāp
a sorrowful cry; a lament
विलाप vilāp
mourning
विलाप vilāp

lamentation in Tamil

lamentation, lamenting, whining, babbling, mourning, chattering
புலம்பல் pulampal

lamentation in Urdu

lamentation, complaint, plaint, supplication
فریاد faryād
lamentation, wailing
بین bain
lamentation, beating the chest
ماتم mātam

lamentation in Telugu

lamentation
రోదనము rōdanamu
More languagesFewer languages
lamentation in Malayalam
പ്രരോദനം prarōdanaṁ, അല ala
lamentation in Kannada
ಅರ್ಕೆ, ವಿಲಾಪ

Antonyms of lamentation

Forms of lamentation

plurallamentations

Origin of lamentation

Recorded since 1375, from Middle English lamentacioun, from Middle French lamentation and its etymon Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. By surface analysis, lament + -ation.

Words that rhyme with lamentation

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lamentation

What does lamentation mean?
Lamentation means the act of lamenting.
What is lamentation in Hindi?
Lamentation in Hindi is विलाप (vilāp). See Lamentation meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is lamentation?
Lamentation is a noun.
How do you pronounce lamentation?
Lamentation is pronounced /ˌlæm.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/ (UK).
What is the plural of lamentation?
The plural of lamentation is lamentations.

Words near lamentation in the dictionary

  1. lamentability
  2. lamentable
  3. lamentableness
  4. lamentably
  5. lamentacious
  6. lamentation
  7. lamentational
  8. lamentations
  9. lamentatory
  10. lamented
  11. lamentedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lamentation (page history and authors); புலம்பல் (Tamil) (page history and authors); بین (Urdu) (page history and authors); రోదనము (Telugu) (page history and authors); അല (Malayalam) (page history and authors); lamentation (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lamentation.wav.

Cite this entry: “lamentation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lamentation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.