wail

1. 1.

   a cry of sorrow and grief

   “their pitiful laments could be heard throughout the ward”

   Synonymslamentlamentationplaint

   Broadercomplaint

Other forms of wail

plural

wails·

past tense

wailed·

present participle

wailing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about wail

What does wail mean?

wail means "emit long loud cries". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in wail?

wail has 1 syllable: wail. In IPA it is /ˈweɪl/.

What is another word for wail?

Close synonyms include howl, ululate, roar, yawl, yaup. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is wail a common word?

wail is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with wail?

2 words rhyme with wail. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.