What's the difference between wail and weep?

Wail


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To choose; to select.
  • (v. t.) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over; as, to wail one's death.
  • (v. i.) To express sorrow audibly; to make mournful outcry; to weep.
  • (n.) Loud weeping; violent lamentation; wailing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You couldn't get much more bohemian than the music playing in this room of tiny round tables, first French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and then cabaret freak Scott Walker wailing of their obelisk-size pain.
  • (2) Every now and then some rich Oga or Madam comes along in their bulletproof cars and wailing sirens, and distorts the delicate equilibrium of this body of traffic.
  • (3) In groups 1 and 2, clusters of cylindrical tubules, typical of the male gland, decreased in number and disappeared almost completely 2 wailed in these two groups throughout the remaining period of experiment.
  • (4) "Barcelona's habit of playing midfielders in defence will do them more harm than good," he wails.
  • (5) "Gnnmph, I can't 'ave it 'ere, I 'aven't 'ad my enema," wails a labouring housewife, straining fruitlessly on a communal tenement bog as horrified neighbours look on in their rollers.
  • (6) There were moments when music seemed to struggle to be heard over the tocking of iPod clickwheels and the wailing of record company executives.
  • (7) The army cleared itself of responsibility for the killing of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach three weeks ago during an artillery barrage after many Israelis were shaken by television pictures of a traumatised child wailing over the body of her father.
  • (8) While Arsenal fans have spent the last nine years gnashing and wailing, Hull supporters have cheered the incredible resurrection of their club, as David Conn explains here .
  • (9) Some family members, after years of begging for mercy and receiving none, broke down and wailed.
  • (10) The big story Once upon a time the Oscar ceremony was a comforting drone punctuated only by the odd song-and-dance routine and the banshee wailing of overwhelmed best actress award winners.
  • (11) Elsewhere on the carpet Quentin Tarantino is having a bop with Uma Thurman (again), Xavier Dolan is wearing an outrageous tux (again) and the boring normal people at the barriers are wailing for stars' attention (again).
  • (12) Later that night, Lola wailed in the street as the police prised her baby from her arms and led her into custody.
  • (13) Family members who had gathered at a hotel in Beijing wailed as they heard the news.
  • (14) Naderi offered his prayers to Dhu’s family at the end of his evidence, saying: “I wish I was able to pick up any abnormal signs that may have made a difference.” Carol Roe ran crying from the courtroom, her wail flowing back through the door to where Naderi was seated in the witness box.
  • (15) Sorrowful wails and sobs resounded as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide.
  • (16) Sandy breaking out of the compound BB3 Sandy's insistence on his quirkiness got rather wearing, so it was just as well he made a bid for escape, with his new best friend Alex wailing, "Be careful, Sandy, be careful!"
  • (17) Starbucks admitted that while it can (quite incredibly) claim that its 700 UK stores are not profitable, through wails of what seemed like crocodile tears, its 30 coffee traders in Switzerland make an enormous 20% profit margin despite never seeing a coffee bean; a fact that the committee could not have helped noting might be related to the 12% tax it pays in that state.
  • (18) Their players are distraught and making a mess of everything, while the TV producer here is having an absolute ball picking out wailing Brazilians in the crowd.
  • (19) Another shows a scene of villagers wailing with grief: “Villagers grieve as their friend is put into the ambulance,” the voiceover says.
  • (20) Among those who finally decided that Kobani was on the brink was Mukdad Bozan, travelling with his wife, a wailing baby and three bedraggled older children.

Weep


Definition:

  • (v. i.) Formerly, to express sorrow, grief, or anguish, by outcry, or by other manifest signs; in modern use, to show grief or other passions by shedding tears; to shed tears; to cry.
  • (n.) The lapwing; the wipe; -- so called from its cry.
  • () imp. of Weep, for wept.
  • (v. i.) To lament; to complain.
  • (v. i.) To flow in drops; to run in drops.
  • (v. i.) To drop water, or the like; to drip; to be soaked.
  • (v. i.) To hang the branches, as if in sorrow; to be pendent; to droop; -- said of a plant or its branches.
  • (v. t.) To lament; to bewail; to bemoan.
  • (v. t.) To shed, or pour forth, as tears; to shed drop by drop, as if tears; as, to weep tears of joy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Patients with bilateral forebrain disease may commonly manifest the syndrome of pathologic laughing and weeping.
  • (2) Pilgrims from all over the world, many weeping and clutching precious mementos or photographs of loved ones, jostle beneath its soaring domes every day.
  • (3) We report the emergence of an erythematous weeping rash with impending exfoliation three years after the initiation of minoxidil therapy.
  • (4) Abu Qatada's brothers, children and sisters remained on a court bench, some of the women weeping as journalists pressed against the courtroom cell to ask the Salafist leader about his views on Isis violence.
  • (5) Dan Heymann, a reluctant army conscript, wrote the brutally satirical Weeping for His Band Bright Blue .
  • (6) Quite a number of people brought up in the emotional straitjackets of the English upper classes found blessed relief in the permission the Holy Spirit gave them to weep or laugh and gibber and faint in public.
  • (7) Past reunions brought together weeping family members desperate for details and news.
  • (8) A Syrian man who was pictured weeping as he and his family reached the Greek island of Kos last month has arrived in Berlin, it has been reported.
  • (9) People were weeping in the streets outside, but once the fire was out everyone took stock a little bit.
  • (10) How was I expected to get through the night without weeping openly?
  • (11) That’s fine, that’s the great thing about being an artist – I’m not going to weep over their multimillion-pound suit trousers.” Grayson Perry: All Man concludes on Thursday 19 May at 10pm on Channel 4
  • (12) As measured by the Hospital Observed Behavior Scale, subjects in the intensive care unit exhibited apprehension, anxiety, detachment, sadness, and weeping more often than did patients in the ward.
  • (13) These genes do not appear to play a role in infection of weeping lovegrass because both parents and all progeny infect weeping lovegrass.
  • (14) Angry beyond belief, unable to control his weeping, he ran to the local governor's office to complain at this vicious injustice.
  • (15) If the football fans were like that, Emile Heskey would be an almost sacred figure and people would still be weeping about Peter Beardsley.
  • (16) He said she was weeping with shock but was not taken to hospital and instead was met by her boyfriend and taken to stay with her sister.
  • (17) Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” It’s not a sentiment reflected in ACL press releases, less concerned with warning the rich than fighting the queers.
  • (18) But for the most part, when I watch these marches on snowy Polish streets, with the familiar cadences of their chants, and when I hear old Lech Wałęsa say that “patriots must unite” to get rid of PiS by unspecified “clever, attractive and peaceful” means, I laugh with one eye and weep with the other.
  • (19) Although this form of application is a special presentation for the treatment of very dry dermatoses, patients with not so dry and weeping dermatoses were also treated in this trial, the object being to include the role played by the vehicle in the results of therapy.
  • (20) Only a short bus ride from Princes Street, it combines peace and tranquillity, a burbling stream, and autumn colours to make New England weep.

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