Word.ws English Dictionary

wail

/weɪl/

wail verb: to cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.

Verb (1)

wail (third-person singular simple present wails, present participle wailing, simple past and past participle wailed)

  1. (intransitive) To cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.
    Synonyms:
    groan, moan
  2. (intransitive) To weep, lament persistently or bitterly.
  3. (intransitive) To make a noise like mourning or crying.
    • The wind wailed and the rain streamed down.
    Synonyms:
    keen, ululate
  4. (transitive) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over.
    • to wail one's death
    • My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
  5. (slang) To perform with great liveliness and force.
    • Another outstanding surfer from Hawaii - Fred Hemmings. Fred only stands up on alternate Wednesdays, but when he does, he really wails.1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer
    • At Boston's Roseland, as "the Count's band was wailing," he grabbed Mamie, an avid dancer. The "band was screaming when she kicked off her shoes and got barefooted1999, Lewis A. Erenberg, Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture, page 111

Noun

wail (plural wails)

  1. A prolonged cry, usually high-pitched, especially as of grief or anguish.
    • She let out a loud, doleful wail.
  2. Any similar sound as of lamentation; a howl.
    • The wail of snow-dark winter winds.
    • A bird's wail in the night.
  3. A sound made by emergency vehicle sirens, contrasted with "yelp" which is higher-pitched and faster.

Verb (2)

wail (third-person singular simple present wails, present participle wailing, simple past and past participle wailed)

  1. (obsolete) Synonym of wale (“to choose; to select”).
    • Wailed wine and metesc. 1500, Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid
    Synonyms:
    wale

Proper noun capitalized: Wail

Wail

  1. A locality in the Rural City of Horsham, western Victoria, Australia.

wail meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam

wail in Tamil

ஒப்பாரி, ஓலமிடு, ஓலம், புலம்பல், புலம்பு

wail in Marathi

to cry out
गळा काढणे gaḷā kāḍhṇe

wail in Urdu

آہ و زاری, فریاد, گریہ, نالہ, رونا پیٹنا, فریاد کرنا

wail in Malayalam

വലിയ വായിലെ നിലവിളി, വിലാപം, അലമുറ, ഓരി
More languagesFewer languages
wail in Punjabi
کرلانا kurlāṇā
wail in Sanskrit
लप् lap
wail in Persian
زاری کردن zâri kardan, ضجه زدن zajje zadan, گریه و زاری کردن gerye-o-zâri kardan, ویله veyle

Examples of wail in a sentence

  • The band was really wailing as we quickly made our dance moves in a most provocative manner.2012, Robert Lewis Barrett, A Portrait of the First Born As a Child, page 377:
  • We had a nondenominational wedding, with a bunch of great Sufi musicians really wailing, and my wildly enthusiastic mother in attendance.2013, Joan Silber, Fools, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with wail

Synonyms of wail

23 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of wail

Forms of wail

Verb
third-person singular presentwails
present participlewailing
past participlewailed
pastwailed
Noun
pluralwails

Past tense of wail: wailed

Origin of wail

c. 1300, Middle English weilen, waylen (“to sob, cry, wail”), from Old Norse væla (“to wail”), from væ, vei (“woe”), from Proto-Germanic *wai (whence also Old English wā (“woe”) (English woe)), from Proto-Indo-European *wáy. The verb is first attested in the intransitive sense; the transitive sense developed in mid-14ᵗʰ c.. The noun came from the verb.

From Old Norse val (“choice”). Compare Icelandic velja (“to choose”). More at wale.

Words formed from wail

Words that rhyme with wail

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about wail

What does wail mean?
Wail means to cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.
What is wail in Tamil?
Wail in Tamil is ஒப்பாரி, ஓலமிடு, ஓலம். See Wail meaning in Tamil.
How do you use wail in a sentence?
The band was really wailing as we quickly made our dance moves in a most provocative manner.
What part of speech is wail?
Wail can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce wail?
Wail is pronounced /weɪl/.
What is the past tense of wail?
The past tense of wail is wailed.

Words near wail in the dictionary

  1. Waikokopu
  2. Waikoloa Village
  3. Waikouaiti
  4. Waikuri
  5. Waikurian
  6. wail
  7. wail on
  8. Wailaki
  9. Wailakis
  10. waile
  11. Wailea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wail (page history and authors); Wail (page history and authors); wail (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wail (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wail (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کرلانا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); लप् (Sanskrit) (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: en-us-wail.ogg.

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