Also 5–6 waile, wayle. [Belongs to WAIL v. Cf. ON. vǽl neut.]
1. The action of wailing; expression of pain or grief by prolonged vocal sound.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 13979. Miche wepyng & wail, wetyng of lere.
1726–46. Thomson, Spring, 725. Till … the woods Sigh to her song, and with her [the bereaved nightingale’s] wail resound.
1811. W. R. Spencer, Poems, 23. What accents slow, of wail and woe.
1821. Byron, Two Fosc., I. i. Ah! a voice of wail!
1850. Robertson, Serm., Ser. II. iii. (1864), 35. He had an ear open for every tone of wail.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XI. i. (1873), IV. 2. A thousand children … with shrill unison of wail, sang out: ‘Oh, deliver us from slavery!’
1865. Tom Taylor, Ballads & Songs of Brittany, 82.
| As he rode forth from his castle-hold, | |
| There was weeping and wail from young and old. |
b. esp. Sound of lamentation for the dead.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 8719. The dole for þat doghty of his dere fryndes Of wepyng & wayle & wryngyng of hondes … no lettur might tell.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxvii. The wives o’ the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Rom. Page, xx. Wail shook Earl Walter’s house; His true wife shed no tear.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xc. The dead, whose dying eyes Were closed with wail.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. v. 102. ‘There was a great cry in Egypt,’ the loud, frantic, funeral wail, characteristic of the whole nation.
2. A cry of pain or grief, esp. if loud and prolonged.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, vi. Every time we … directed our eyes towards it, our guide set up a wail.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. Fleet, I. 2. The newborn babe begins his earthly course with a wail.
1900. F. T. Bullen, With Christ at Sea, xii. 223. Six of them died … and were dropped overboard amid the piercing wails of their companions.
b. fig. A bitter lamentation.
1867. Smiles, Huguenots Eng., ix. (1880), 154. A long wail of anguish was rising from the persecuted all over France.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xviii. 104. The record, or rather the wail of the native writer is more than borne out by [etc.].
1873. Emma J. Worboise, Our New Home, xv. And still all her wail was, ‘Oh, that I had died in Windermere!’
3. transf. A sound resembling a cry of pain.
1825. Longf., Hymn Morav. Nuns, 13. When the battle’s distant wail Breaks the sabbath of our vale.
1858. N. J. Gannon, O’Donoghue, I. 10.
| Varied by fox’s bark, the wail | |
| Of plover, or the pipe of quail. |
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxv. 185. The storm … with a melancholy wail,… bade our rock farewell.
1877. Miss A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, vii. 195. Hark that thin plaintive cry! It is the wail of a night-wandering jackal.
1882. Annie Edwardes, A Ballroom Repentance, I. 219. A cantata … with a subtle wail of pain underlying the surface joyousness of the centric melody.
1913. M. Roberts, Salt of the Sea, xviii. 419. He made the whistle give a melancholy wail.
† 4. A state of woe. Obs. rare.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor., III. xxiii. (1716), 115. Dream not of any kind of Metempsychosis..., but into thine own body, and that after a long time, and then also unto wail or bliss, according to thy first and fundamental Life.
