What's the difference between bewail and lament?

Bewail


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To express deep sorrow for, as by wailing; to lament; to wail over.
  • (v. i.) To express grief; to lament.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comments sent to a blog I came across bewail the tendency of female comics to work around the themes of "bras, periods, chocolate, WeightWatchers".
  • (2) Way back in 1693 John Locke was bewailing the fact that boys had such trouble learning Latin while girls took so easily to French (he saw it as a failure of method, not a failure of intellect).
  • (3) Sex workers are a notoriously difficult group to contact, and the government has repeatedly bewailed our social exclusion – more notice, more funding and more accountability would all have made this effort to connect with us less of a figleaf and more of a commitment to change.
  • (4) It is not enough to bewail this dreadful situation, point the finger of blame at others, condemn the latest outrage, circle the western wagons against Isis and hunker down in the hope that, somehow, the war will burn itself out.
  • (5) It is run by a self-serving, bureaucratic and political elite, is notoriously corrupt, and is admired only by politicians from the Middle East or Africa who bewail their own lack of unity, or by Americans who see its member nations as the colonies of 1776.
  • (6) The Conservative Euro-enthusiasts are a furtive and dwindling band, whose failure to push the case for their views is a cause of the situation they bewail.
  • (7) The last time the west laughed so uproariously at a Korean singer was when an animated Kim Jong-il bewailed how "ronery" he was in the film Team America, and how nobody took him "serirousry".
  • (8) He also bewailed the Met's confiscation of glass jars containing Hussain's prized collection of coins.
  • (9) and Aladdin, an Arabian fantasia that Edward Said might return from the grave just to bewail.
  • (10) Yes, some fashion is very expensive – so, incidentally, is football but I have yet to see a single comment beneath a football column bewailing how much Manchester United pays its players every week, or even how much a Chelsea season ticket costs, but that, apparently, is by the bye.

Lament


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To express or feel sorrow; to weep or wail; to mourn.
  • (v. t.) To mourn for; to bemoan; to bewail.
  • (v.) Grief or sorrow expressed in complaints or cries; lamentation; a wailing; a moaning; a weeping.
  • (v.) An elegy or mournful ballad, or the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Foster has long admired the speed with which these were built, and laments how Britain has dithered about London's airports.
  • (2) The screen-printing evening is taking place in Bushwick, an area known for – or lamented as – being the hippest part of Brooklyn.
  • (3) The debates and the campaign are increasingly covered as entertainment,” Rubio said, lamenting the networks’ hunt for ratings.
  • (4) Prior to the constitutional reform bill being introduced last July, Mandelson had lamented in an interview with the Financial Times that it was "not legally possible" for him to stand again as an MP.
  • (5) In an interview with the Qingdao Morning Post, one man lamented how in recent years his wife had frittered away 130,000 yuan (£13,500) of their hard-earned savings on Double Eleven purchases – thus dashing their dreams of buying a new home.
  • (6) If peerages are in effect being sold, the academics argue, “these could be thought of as the ‘average price’ per party.” Former Liberal Democrat peer, Matthew Oakeshott, who on leaving the Lords in May last year lamented that his efforts to uncover cash-for-honours deals across the parties had failed, told the Observer that the case against the system, and the parties, was now compelling.
  • (7) Alongside that political failing is a lamentable failure of the police command culture.
  • (8) Calling on Israel to “break with its lamentable track record” and hold wrongdoers responsible, the hard-hitting report commissioned by the UN human rights council lays most of the blame for Israel’s suspected violations at the feet of the country’s political and military leadership.
  • (9) He also expresses his lament that Australia’s $46 million bid, which earned one vote as the World Cup was controversially awarded to Qatar, never stood a chance.
  • (10) Farah addressed the media in Birmingham on Saturday, lamenting his name being “dragged through the mud” because of his links to Salazar, despite no allegations of wrongdoing against him personally.
  • (11) Although that guarantee is traditionally understood to prohibit intentional discrimination under existing laws, equal protection does not end there … to know the history of our nation is to understand its long and lamentable record of stymieing the right of racial minorities to participate in the political process.” Justice Elena Kagan, another of the court’s liberals, sat out of the case due to conflicts of interest.
  • (12) It's music that defines compassion, lament, and loss, to which you can only surrender in moist-eyed wonder.
  • (13) Or you might find it rather sad that someone who spends a lot of their time lamenting how society's unrealistic beauty standards are used to control and oppress women is a victim of those same standards.
  • (14) But recounting the story of one of the key experiences of European integration, the painter and decorator sounded elegiac, as if describing not current realities but those of a lamented past.
  • (15) The deputy prime minister, Bülent Arinc, one of the co-founders of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), made the comment while lamenting the moral decline of modern society.
  • (16) For veterans of the women's movement there may be something unnerving about hearing the familiar slogans from Tory mouths – a sense that, as a female columnist lamented recently of Mensch, these late converts are "the wrong kind" of feminists.
  • (17) Wenger, though, warmed to a familiar theme when he lamented the importance that is attached to incoming signings.
  • (18) Hollande vowed to tackle France's standing as the most pessimistic country in Europe , "perhaps in the world", lamenting: "There are countries at war who are more optimistic than us."
  • (19) On Twitter , Wade lamented what he called another “act of senseless gun violence” which meant “4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON”.
  • (20) "We didn't make any mistakes today," Poyet lamented.