cry
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The verb is from Middle English crien (13th century), from Old French crier, from Vulgar Latin *crītāre, generally thought to derive from Classical Latin quirītāre (Proto-West Germanic *krītan has also been suggested as a source). The noun corresponds to Middle English cry, crie, from Old French cri, a deverbal of crier.
etymology note
Middle English crien eventually displaced native Middle English galen (“to cry out”) (from Old English galan), Middle English greden (“to cry out”) (from Old English grǣdan), Middle English yermen (“to bellow, mourn, lament”) (from Old English ġierman), Middle English hooen, hoen (“to cry out”) (from Old Norse hóa), Middle English remen (“to cry, shout”) (from Old English hrīeman, compare Old English hrēam (“noise, outcry, lamentation, alarm”)), Middle English greten, graten (“to weep, cry, lament”) (from Old English grǣtan and Old Norse gráta). More at greet, regret.
Already in the 13th century, the meaning was extended to include the sense "to shed tears" (natively weep); cry used in this sense had mostly replaced weep by the 16th century.
Inflected forms:
form: cries
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: crying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
first-person
past
singular
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
first-person
past
singular
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: criest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: cryest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: criedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: cryedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: cries
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: crieth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: cryeth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
singular
third-person
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
singular
third-person
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
plural
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
plural
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
subjunctive
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
subjunctive
form: cry
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: crying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cried
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cryed
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: crode
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: cries
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: That sad movie always makes me cry.
- Emerl: “There’s nothing worse than making a girl cry!” That’s what Sonic said...
gloss: To utter loudly; to call out; to declare publicly.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: All, all, cry shame against ye, yet I'll speak.
[T]he Man put his fingers in his Ears, and ran on crying, Life, Life, Eternal Life: [...]
gloss: To shout, scream, yell.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice.
gloss: To forcefully attract attention or proclaim one’s presence.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
gloss: To utter inarticulate sounds, as animals do.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: the young ravens which cry
In a cowslip's bell I lie / There I couch when owls do cry.
gloss: To cause to do something, or bring to some state, by crying or weeping.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Tonight I’ll cry myself to sleep.
gloss: To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc.
pos: verb
examples: to cry goods
Love is lost, and thus she cries him.
“We're in luck. Loren Passerine, the finest auctioneer in the West, will be crying today.” “Will be what?” “We say an auctioneer ‘cries’ a sale,” Cohen said.
Oh, Elcid Barrett cried the town / (How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!) / For twenty brave men, all fishermen, who / Would make for him the Antelope's crew.
gloss: To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc.
pos: verb
examples: I should not be surprised if they were cried in church next Sabbath.
gloss: A shedding of tears; the act of crying.
pos: noun
examples: After we broke up, I retreated to my room for a good cry.
gloss: A shout or scream.
pos: noun
examples: I heard a cry from afar.
gloss: Words shouted or screamed.
pos: noun
examples: a battle cry
gloss: A clamour or outcry.
pos: noun
examples: His pupil, Maimonides, that he might not be under the necessity of violating the laws of friendship and gratitude, by joining the general cry against Averroes, left Corduba.
gloss: A group of hounds.
pos: noun
tags: collective
examples: A cry more tunable / Was never hollaed to, nor cheered with horn.
1667, Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, in Edward Hawkins, The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors, Vol. I, W. Baxter, J. Parker, G. B. Whittaker (publs., 1824) pages 124 to 126, lines 648 to 659.
[…] Before the gates there sat / On either side a formidable shape; / The one seem’d woman to the waste, and fair, / But ended foul in many a scaly fold / Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm’d / With mortal sting: about her middle round / A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark’d / With wide Cerberean mouths full loud and rung / A hideous peal; yet, when they list,would creep, / If ought disturb'd their noise, into her womb, / and kennel there, yet there still bark’d and howl’d, / Within unseen. […]
gloss: A pack or company of people.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
derogatory
obsolete
examples: Would not this […] get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
gloss: A typical sound made by the species in question.
pos: noun
examples: "Woof" is the cry of a dog, while "neigh" is the cry of a horse.
But the shrill wild cry of the heron overpowered the cries of all the other birds, whom it seemed to terrify; they were silent the moment they heard it, and a silence followed which made the interruption doubly unpleasant.
gloss: A desperate or urgent request.
pos: noun
gloss: Common report; gossip.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: The cry goes that you shall marry her.
Synonyms: bawl
blubber
sob
wail
weep
whimper
Antonyms: laugh
Related words: crocodile tears
Derived words: all over but the crying
becry
catchcry
cry aim
cry all the way to the bank
cry and seethe
cry beef
cry blue murder
cry buckets
cry carrots and turnips
cry craven
cry cupboard
cry down
cryey
cry foul
cry from the housetop
cry from the housetops
cry from the rooftop
cry from the rooftops
cryful
cry halves
cry harder
cry havoc
crying bird
crying call
crying game
crying shame
cry in one's beer
cry in the wilderness
cry into one's beer
cry it out
cry-laugh
cry like a baby
cry like a little girl
cry off
cry on
cry oneself to sleep
cry one's eyes out
cry out
cry out for
cry over spilt milk
crysome
cry someone a river
cry stinking fish
cry the blues
cry-typing
cry uncle
cry up
cry wolf
don't cry over spilled milk
don't cry over spilt milk
for crying in the beer
for crying out loud
forecry
kiss and cry
laugh-cry
make baby Jesus cry
make the bald man cry
shooting and crying
shoulder to cry on
there's no point crying over spilt milk
there's no use crying over spilt milk
ugly cry
upcry
voice crying in the wilderness
crybaby
undercry
all cry and no wool
battle cry
countercry
cryfest
cry for help
cry room
cuckoo cry
far cry
give cry
great cry and little wool
hue and cry
in full cry
midcry
more cry than wool
parrot cry
party cry
rallying cry
tin cry
war cry
within cry
Translations: