weep Irish en · VERB
Etymology
From the extravagant displays of emotion associated with professional mourners at traditional Irish funerals.
Meanings
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(dated, idiomatic) To cry insincerely or in an exaggerated manner.
She never confesed to me this seed of my disorder, but "wept Irish" to others, how I had shed tears at birth before my first sound.
2007, Mary Kelly Black, Lovely, Lonely Life: a Woman's Village Journal (Vol. 1):All this while, above in chambers looking out, we saw the long-bearded ministers of Geneva who laughed at us; but if we might have had our wills we would have made them to have wept Irish.
1905, Bede Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs (Vol. 2):I have here omitted the pathetic description of Billy Flannagan, touching the doleful parting of Cathleen with her people, "who wept Irish," hullaghlued, ahahoned, with all the moving circumstances of her farewell, and the seeing her home.
1843, Nathanael Burton, History of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, near Dublin:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| wept Irish | Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| wept Irish | Tense=Past | lexicographic | |
| weeps Irish | Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres | lexicographic | |
| weeping Irish | Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic |