LAMENTATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lamentation mean? 

• LAMENTATION (noun)
  The noun LAMENTATION has 2 senses:

1. a cry of sorrow and grief

2. the passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief

  Familiarity information: LAMENTATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LAMENTATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cry of sorrow and grief

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

lament; lamentation; plaint; wail

Context example:

their pitiful laments could be heard throughout the ward

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

complaint ((formerly) a loud cry (or repeated cries) of pain or rage or sorrow)

Derivation:

lament (express grief verbally)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

lamentation; mourning

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

activity (any specific behavior)

expression; manifestation; reflection; reflexion (expression without words)

Derivation:

lament (express grief verbally)

 Context examples 

Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be heard!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

They were all drunk, and paid no heed to her cries and lamentations.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto restrained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and again how provoking it was to be so disappointed.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Their remoteness and unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing forth bitter lamentations.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“Did she not break into lamentation and woe that a brother should so demean himself?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No one cried, no one ran away or uttered a lamentation, though their hearts were very heavy as they sent loving messages to Father, remembering, as they spoke that it might be too late to deliver them.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr. Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor Isabella;—which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)