bemoan
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɪˈməʊn/
ipa: /bɪˈmoʊn/
rhymes: -əʊn
Forms: form: bemoans
form: bemoaning
form: bemoaned
form: bemoaned
Etymology: From Middle English bemenen, bimenen, from Old English bemǣnan (“to bemoan, bewail, lament”); equivalent to be- (“about, concerning”) + moan. Alteration of vowel from Middle to Modern English due to analogy with moan.
Senses: examples: text: He bemoaned the drought but went on watering his lawn.
text: The losse of this erle was greatly bemoned by men of al degrees, for he was liberal, gentle, humble, and curteous to eche one […]
ref: 1577, Raphael Holinshed, “King Richard the seconde”, in The Chronicles of England, Scotlande and Irelande, London: John Hunne, page 1075:
text: […] after deliberately marrying General Shaw with no warmer feeling than respect for his character and establishment, [she] was constantly, though quietly, bemoaning her hard lot in being united to one whom she could not love.
ref: 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 1, in North and South:
text: “I am sure you are better off without Mr. Hogg,” Helena would say often when Georgina bemoaned her husband’s desertion.
ref: 1957, Muriel Spark, chapter 7, in The Comforters, New York: Avon, published 1965, page 155:
text: "Directoritis strikes again!" bemoans Dan Sullivan, who believes that the director of Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon replaces the characters' intellectual and verbal energy with "transparent rationalizations for the personal hang-ups of the characters […]
ref: 1988, Richard H. Palmer, The Critics' Canon: Standards of Theatrical Reviewing in America:
text: He’d have told that horrible sister of his that more coloureds had just turned up. How many is it now? they’d have said to each other. Fifty? Sixty? ‘You’ll have to speak to her, Cyril,’ she’d have told him, before bemoaning how respectable this street was before they came.
ref: 2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 9, in Small Island, London: Review, page 112:
synonyms: word: bewail
word: lament
word: mourn
word: beef
word: bellyache
word: bemoan
word: bitch
word: bleat
word: carp
word: chunter
word: complain
word: crab
word: croak
word: dump on
word: frine
word: girn
word: give out
word: grumble
word: grotch
word: grouse
word: grouch
word: grump
word: gruntle
word: gripe
word: harp
word: inveigh
word: kvetch
word: latrate
word: make a stink
word: murmur
word: mutter
word: moan
word: nag
word: nark
word: nudzh
word: pinch
word: piss and moan
word: rail
word: rail out
word: repine
word: ride
word: snivel
word: whine
word: whinge
glosses: To moan or complain about (something).
examples: text: Son. Was ever son so rued a father’s death?
Father. Was ever father so bemoan’d his son?
ref: c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]:
text: Sure you take mee not to be made of flesh, or if so, yet not to be sensible that thinke me able to beare these burthens without bemoning my selfe.
ref: 1640, George Abbot, The Whole Booke of Iob Paraphrased, London, Chapter 6, verse 12, pp. 40-41:
text: My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. […] It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom: it bemoaned him with bitter pity […]
ref: 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter II, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 52:
text: […]So we cried to him, "O Rais, what is the matter?"; and he replied saying, "Seek ye deliverance of the Most High from the strait into which we have fallen and bemoan yourselves and take leave of one another; for know that the wind hath gotten the mastery of us and hath driven us into the uttermost of the seas of the world."
ref: 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 563:
text: “He is come to the town in order to marry a hapless maiden. The lady must be bemoaned.”
ref: 1987, Tanith Lee, “Children of the Night”, in Night’s Sorceries, Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, page 396:
synonyms: word: grieve
word: lament
word: begrieve
word: bemoan
word: bewail
word: beweep
word: condole
word: deplore
word: grieve
word: grieven
word: keen
word: lament
word: mean
word: mourn
word: pine
word: sigh
word: sorrow
word: wail
word: wayment
glosses: To be dismayed or worried about (someone), particularly because of their situation or what has happened to them.
Derived terms: bemoanable
bemoaner
bemoaning
bemoaningly
forebemoaned
unbemoaned