BEMOAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bemoan mean? 

• BEMOAN (verb)
  The verb BEMOAN has 1 sense:

1. regret strongly

  Familiarity information: BEMOAN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEMOAN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they bemoan    ... he / she / it bemoans   
Past simple: bemoaned   
Past participle: bemoaned   
-ing form: bemoaning   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Regret strongly

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

bemoan; bewail; deplore; lament

Context example:

we lamented the loss of benefits

Hypernyms (to "bemoan" is one way to...):

complain; kick; kvetch; plain; quetch; sound off (express complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

And the birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop; and first of all came an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless children.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You won't have anything else here. and having delivered her defiance all on one breath, Meg cast away her pinafore and precipitately left the field to bemoan herself in her own room.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)