Wailing

How to spell wailing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wailing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wailing mean?

1. verbCrying out in a long, loud, high-pitched way from grief or pain.
2. nounThe sound of prolonged, high-pitched crying or a similar mournful noise.
3. adjectiveProducing a long, loud, mournful sound.

Wailing in a sentence

• verb

  The crowd could hear a child wailing somewhere in the market.

• noun

  The wailing of the sirens woke the whole street.

• adjective

  The wailing wind kept everyone awake during the storm.

• verb

  A baby kept wailing in the seat behind us on the flight.

• noun

  We could hear distant wailing coming from the funeral procession.

• adjective

  A wailing guitar solo carried over the crowd.

Where does wailing come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word traces back to the Old Norse verb 'væla', meaning 'to lament loudly', which was itself related to the cry 'vei', an exclamation of woe and grief much like the English 'woe'. Norse settlers brought the word into northern England, and it surfaces in Middle English as 'weilen' or 'wailen' around the 1300s, describing the loud, drawn-out crying of mourners. The present participle 'wailing' simply adds the '-ing' ending to that base verb, and the spelling keeps the steady 'ai' vowel of 'wail'. The chief spelling trap is that 'wailing' sounds exactly like 'whaling' (the hunting of whales), so the silent 'h' and the change of vowel spelling separate two completely different words. Its emotional roots make it a close cousin of the old interjection 'wellaway', another lament built on the same sense of sorrow.

How the word is built

• wail (to cry out in grief, from Old Norse)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)

Words that sound like wailing

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• whaling: The activity or industry of hunting whales for oil, meat, or other products.