Dictionary

beweep en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English bewepen, biwepen, from Old English bewēpan (“to weep over, mourn, bewail”), from Proto-West Germanic *biwōpijan (“to weep over”), equivalent to be- + weep. Cognate with Old Frisian biwēpa (“to beweep”), Old Saxon biwōpian (“to beweep”).

Meanings

1. (transitive) To weep over; weep for; weep about; deplore; lament.
   • Let Gods, men, brutes, beweep him, plants and stones. So shall she know your loss was dear indeed. And bend her heart, and give you Balder back. 1855, Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead, Part III, lines 44-46:
   • c. 1593, Michael Drayton, The Shepheards Garland, The Second Eglog, 2nd edition, With Nymphs and shepheards yearly moane His timeless death beweeping. In telling that my hart alone Hath his last will in keeping.
   • When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
2. (intransitive) To weep.
   • Fast by her style doth wery labour stand./ Pale fere also, and sorrow all bewept c.''' 1500, Thomas More, To Them that Trust in Fortune:
   • And therefore saith Job to God, ' Suffer, Lord, that I may a while bewail and beweep, ere I go without returning to the dark land, covered with the darkness of death ; to the land of misease and of darkness, whereas is the shadow of death; whereas is no order nor ordinance, but grisly dread that ever shall last.' 1875, Charles Cowden Clarke, The Canterbury tales of Chaucer, with notes by T. Tyrwhitt., page 196:
   • Child! Arline! wilt thou? darest thou heap A stain thine after life will beweep, On these hairs by thee and sorrow bleach'd On this hear dishonour never reach'd. 1843, Alfred Bunn, The new grand opera In Three Acts of The Bohemian Girl., page 30:
   • Cinnamongirl: I am in disgrace in my fellow maidens' eyes and I do beweep alone in my outcast state. 2007, Cathy Hopkins, Starting Over, →ISBN:
   • How could I condemn a name that honours so many of my friends for whose distance or loss I now beweep? 2014, Vincenzo Cuoco, Bruce Haddock, Filippo Sabetti, Historical Essay on the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, →ISBN, page 114:
   • Anyway, not wishing to speak too much of myself- for 'my Auschwitz adolescence to whom beweep?/ Since my Belsen boyhood sent all to sleep'- I'll just take a single incident from my childhood to show how, 'Midnight's children' fashion, I too changed history by Giving Saddam Hussein the idea for biological weapons. 2007, Vivek Iyer, Samlee's Daughter: A Novel, →ISBN:

Forms

Deriveds

beweeper

Synonyms

shed tears · deplore · bemoan · lament · weep · burst into tears · elegize · bewail · mourn · wail · mean · shed tears · becry · grieve · shed a tear · cry one's eyes out · sigh · condole · keen · begrieve · repent · bewail · pine · wayment · grieven · greet · beweep · cry · bemourn · wail · bemoan · sorrow · beweep · afterthink · squirt some