cry

verbnouncommon in dialogue

//kɹaɪ//

To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness.

verb

1
To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness.
That sad movie always makes me cry.
- Emerl: “There’s nothing worse than making a girl cry!” That’s what Sonic said...
2
To utter loudly; to call out; to declare publicly.
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: [...]
3
To shout, scream, yell.
And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice.
4
figurativeTo forcefully attract attention or proclaim one’s presence.
My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue.
5
To utter inarticulate sounds, as animals do.
the young ravens which cry
In a cowslip's bell I lie / There I couch when owls do cry.
6
To cause to do something, or bring to some state, by crying or weeping.
Tonight I’ll cry myself to sleep.
7
To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc.
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.
8
To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc. Hence, to publish the banns of, as for marriage.
I should not be surprised if they were cried in church next Sabbath.

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.

noun

1
A shedding of tears; the act of crying.
After we broke up, I retreated to my room for a good cry.
2
A shout or scream.
I heard a cry from afar.
3
Words shouted or screamed.
a battle cry
4
A clamour or outcry.
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.
5
archaicA group of hounds.
A cry more tunable / Was never hollaed to, nor cheered with horn.
sometimes I have known such a cry of hounds at uncoupling to take the game at counter
6
obsoleteA pack or company of people.
Would not this […] get me a fellowship in a cry of players?
7
A typical sound made by the species in question.
"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.
8
A desperate or urgent request.
9
obsoleteCommon report; gossip.
The cry goes that you shall marry her.

Forms

plural: cries
past tense: cried
past participle: cried
present participle: crying
third person singular: cries

crushing · That crushes; overwhelming.crust · A more solid, dense or hard layer on a surface or boundary.Cruz · A surname from Ibero-Romance.

cry · To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness.

crying · That cries.crypt · An underground vault.crystal · A solid composed of an array of atoms or molecules possessing…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.