Weep

How to spell weep

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce weep

What does weep mean?

1. verbTo shed tears, usually from grief, pain, or strong emotion.
2. verbTo slowly leak or exude liquid, as a wound, plant, or damp surface does.

Weep in a sentence

• The news of the closure made several staff weep at their desks.

• The fresh graze on his knee continued to weep for an hour.

• She tried not to weep as she read the farewell letter aloud.

• Damp basement walls can weep moisture for days after heavy rain.

Where does weep come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English verb wepan, meaning 'to cry' or 'to lament aloud'. That verb came from a Proto-Germanic root reconstructed as wopijana, which is widely thought to be imitative in origin, echoing the sound of sobbing or wailing rather than describing it. The same ancestral root produced related words in other old Germanic languages for crying out and mourning. Over the centuries the strong old past tense 'weop' was gradually replaced by the regular form 'wept', which is the spelling that survives today. The word has kept its plain four-letter shape and its long 'ee' sound since the medieval period, which is why it now poses very little spelling trouble.

How the word is built

• weep (whole word from Old English wepan: to cry, lament); no separable prefix or suffix