BLEAT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bleat mean? 

• BLEAT (noun)
  The noun BLEAT has 1 sense:

1. the sound of sheep or goats (or any sound resembling this)

  Familiarity information: BLEAT used as a noun is very rare.

• BLEAT (verb)
  The verb BLEAT has 2 senses:

1. talk whiningly

2. cry plaintively

  Familiarity information: BLEAT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BLEAT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The sound of sheep or goats (or any sound resembling this)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("bleat" is a kind of...):

cry (the characteristic utterance of an animal)

Derivation:

bleat (cry plaintively)

• BLEAT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they bleat    ... he / she / it bleats   
Past simple: bleated   
Past participle: bleated   
-ing form: bleating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Talk whiningly

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

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

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

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cry plaintively

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

baa; blat; blate; bleat

Context example:

The lambs were bleating

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

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sentence examples:

You can hear animals bleat in the meadows
The meadows bleat with animals

Derivation:

bleat (the sound of sheep or goats (or any sound resembling this))

 Context examples 

Then the old one bleated, and went on her way with an easy mind.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The chairman was on his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He had not gained the crown of the slope, when he heard a sudden scuffle behind him and a feeble voice bleating for help.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black boa at Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant. ‘If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus’—she does not interest me. ‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat, Watson—unmitigated bleat!

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You can bleat about the girl to your heart’s content, for that’s your own affair, but if you round on your pals to this plain-clothes copper, it will be the worst day’s work that ever you did.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A second question from us failed to elicit any answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we would do nothing to make it worse.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature's silence.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)