Moaning

How to spell moaning

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce moaning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does moaning mean?

1. verbMaking a long, low sound that expresses pain, suffering, or sorrow.
2. verbComplaining or grumbling persistently about something in a way others find tiresome.

Moaning in a sentence

• The injured cyclist lay moaning on the roadside until help arrived.

• She spent the whole meeting moaning about the new parking rules.

• He was moaning in his sleep, clearly caught in a bad dream.

• Instead of moaning about the workload, he simply got on with it.

Where does moaning come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'moan', which traces back to the Old English noun 'man', meaning a complaint, a lament, or a feeling of grief, and the related verb 'manan', to grieve or to express sorrow. For centuries the core idea was a low, sorrowful sound made in pain or mourning, and only later did English speakers extend it to the everyday sense of grumbling or complaining persistently about minor irritations. The 'oa' spelling settled in during the Middle English period as scribes used it to mark the long vowel sound, which is the small trap here: it sounds like a single drawn-out 'o' but is written with two letters. The word is a close relative of 'bemoan', which keeps the older mournful flavour intact. Adding the standard '-ing' ending simply turns the verb into its ongoing form, and the silent-e-style worry never arises because 'moan' has no final 'e' to drop.

How the word is built

• moan (root: to lament, from Old English)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)