Word: sing Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English singen, from Old English singan (“to sing”), from Proto-West Germanic *singwan, from Proto-Germanic *singwaną (“to sing”), from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷʰ- (“to recite, sing”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian sjunge (“to sing”), West Frisian sjonge (“to sing”), Dutch zingen (“to sing”), German Low German singen (“to sing”), German singen (“to sing”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål synge (“to sing”), Swedish sjunga (“to sing”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Faroese, and Icelandic syngja (“to sing”), Ancient Greek ὀμφή (omphḗ, “voice, oracle”). Pronunciation: /ˈsɪŋ/, [ˈsɪŋ], /ˈsiŋ/, [ˈsiŋ] ~ [ˈsɪ̝ŋ], /ˈsɪŋɡ/ 1. To produce musical or harmonious sounds with one’s voice. Labels: intransitive Example: "I really want to sing in the school choir," said Vera. Example: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders, and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. 2. To perform a vocal part in a musical composition, regardless of technique. Labels: intransitive 3. To express audibly by means of a harmonious vocalization. Labels: transitive Example: sing a lullaby Example: In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road. 4. To soothe with singing. Labels: transitive Example: to sing somebody to sleep 5. Of birds, to vocalise: Labels: ambitransitive 6. Of birds, to vocalise: Labels: ambitransitive, literary Example: ⁠I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing: And unto one her note is gay, ⁠For now her little ones have ranged; ⁠And unto one her note is changed, Because her brood is stol’n away. Example: The evening was still very warm, and the birds in the woods were singing in praise of spring. 7. To rejoice Example: My heart was singing. 8. To confess under interrogation. Labels: intransitive, slang 9. To make a small, shrill sound. Labels: intransitive Example: The air sings in passing through a crevice. Example: a singing kettle 10. To relate in verse; to celebrate in poetry; to praise. Labels: ambitransitive Example: Who would not ſing for Lycidas? he knew / Himſelf to ſing, and build the lofty rhyme. Example: Again I bid the mournful Goddeſs write / The fond Purſuit of fugitive Delight: / Bid her exalt her melancholy Wing, / And rais'd from Earth, and ſav'd from Paſſion, ſing / Of human Hope by croſs Event deſtroyed, / Of uſeleſs Wealth, and Greatneſs unenjoy'd, […] 11. To display fine qualities; to stand out as excellent. Labels: intransitive Example: The sauce really makes this lamb sing. Example: [Alissa Monte said] “This result was all about demonstrating that LZ [the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment] works, and it does! As we take more data and mature our analyses, we get to make LZ sing. […]” 12. To be capable of being sung; to produce a certain effect by being sung. Labels: ergative Example: No song sings well unless it is open-vowelled, and has the rhythmic stress on the vowels. Tennyson's songs, for instance, are not generally adapted to music. 13. In traditional Aboriginal culture, to direct a supernatural influence on (a person or thing), usually malign; to curse. Labels: Australia Example: ‘He says the Walcott Inlet men have sung him, and this tribe will meet the Walcott men and fight when the big walk-about comes, after the peanut season.’ Example: ‘We sung them two real good. We never give Louis Beck no place to find rest from his torment.’ 14. To yell or shout. Labels: archaic, slang Example: I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight.