wailing
/ˈweɪlɪŋ/
wailing noun: a loud drawn out scream or howl. Also the present participle and gerund of wail.
Noun
wailing (plural wailings)
- A loud drawn out scream or howl.
- 'For as soon as I heard Tewkesbury tell of screams and wailings in the air, and no one to be seen,' said Elzevir, 'I guessed that some poor soul had got shut in the vault, and was there crying for his life.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, “The Rescue”, in Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC, page 69
Also used as
wailing is also the present participle and gerund of wail.
Forms of wailing
| plural | wailings |
|---|
Origin of wailing
From wail + -ing.
Words formed from wailing
Phrases with wailing
Words that rhyme with wailing
Questions about wailing
- What does wailing mean?
- Wailing means a loud drawn out scream or howl.
- What part of speech is wailing?
- Wailing is a noun.
- How do you pronounce wailing?
- Wailing is pronounced /ˈweɪlɪŋ/.
- What is the plural of wailing?
- The plural of wailing is wailings.
Words near wailing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wailing (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wailing.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wailing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wailing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.