[f. WAIL v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb.
13[?]. K. Alis., 7871 (Laud MS.). Michel spray mychel gradyng Michel weep mychel waylyng.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. xxvii. 41. Than Esau … seide in his herte, The dayes of weilyng of my fader shal come, and I shal slee Jacob.
a. 1400. Prymer, Ps. xxxviii. 8. (1895), 39. Y rorid for þe weilyng of myn herte.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 7155. Myche weping & wo, wayling of teris.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, II. viii. 83. With dulefull scrike and waling all is confoundit.
1532. Frith, Mirr. to know thyself, iii. Wks. (1573), 90. When he saw the shepheard so sore lamenting, he reynde hys horse, & asked him the cause of his great wayling.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xiii. 107. The … pioling of Pelicanes,… and wailing of Turtles.
1814. Byron, Lara, II. xxv. Her tears were few, her wailing never loud.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Streets—Night. The child is cold and hungry, and its low wailing adds to the misery of its wretched mother.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., iii. 82. Our travellers proceeded to the ‘Place of Wailing’ of the Jews, who assemble every Friday to weep and pray for the restoration of their own country.
b. Often plural.
13[?]. K. Alis., 2360 (Laud MS.). Michel woo & grete wailynges Was made for þoo ȝongelynges.
1486. Caxton, Curial, 11. To seche to gete them after wyth grete wayllynges and sorow.
1566. Drant, Horace, Sat., title-p., The Wailyngs of the Prophet Hieremiah, done into Englyshe verse.
1695. Prior, Ode after Queen’s Death, xxiii. To Earth her bended Front she bow’d, And sent her Wailings to the Skies.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), II. 116. She again set up her wailings.
1801. Scott, Glenfinlas, xxiv. I bade my harp’s wild wailings flow.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xi. III. 24. The deposed Laureate … continued to complain piteously … of the losses which he had not suffered, till at length his wailings drew forth expressions of well merited contempt from brave and honest Jacobites.
1885. Manch. Exam., 20 July, 6/2. The debate … ended partly in grotesque remedies and partly in wailings of despair.
c. attrib. wailing place spec. in Jews’ Wailing Place, the usual designation of part of the Solomonic wall in Jerusalem where the Jews assemble to lament the destruction of the Temple (also occas. wailing wall); wailing robes nonce-use, mourning garments.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., I. i. 86. Away with these disgracefull wayling Robes.
1919. Q. Rev., April, 328. To the Jews the principal Holy Place is the Wailing Wall, the fragment of the Wall of the Temple at which the Jews perpetually mourn for their lost glories and pray for the restoration of them.
