Word.ws English Dictionary

mewling

mewling is the present participle and gerund of mewl.

Meaning of mewl

Verb

mewl (third-person singular simple present mewls, present participle mewling, simple past and past participle mewled)

  1. To cry weakly with a soft, high-pitched sound; to whimper; to whine.
    • And one man in his time plays many parts, / His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, / Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; / Then the whining school-boy, […]c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

See all 2 meanings of mewl

Noun

mewling (plural mewlings)

  1. A sound that mewls.
    • I heard a faint mewling from under the house.

Forms of mewling

pluralmewlings

Origin of mewling

From mewl + -ing.

Questions about mewling

What does mewling mean?
Mewling means a sound that mewls.
What is mewling the present participle and gerund of?
Mewling is the present participle and gerund of mewl.
What part of speech is mewling?
Mewling is a noun.
What is the plural of mewling?
The plural of mewling is mewlings.

Words near mewling in the dictionary

  1. Mewis
  2. mewl
  3. mewled
  4. mewler
  5. mewlers
  6. mewling
  7. mewlings
  8. mewls
  9. mewmaxx
  10. mewmaxxed
  11. mewmaxxes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mewling (page history and authors); mewl (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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Cite this entry: “mewling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mewling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.