Etymologically
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weep

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wepen,[2][3][4] earlier weopen,[5] inherited from Old English wēpan (“to shed tears, cry; to bewail, mourn”),[2][6][7][5] with past tense wēop and past participle wōpen,[6][2] from Proto-Germanic *wōpijaną.[5][2] It corresponds to Old Frisian wēpa (“to cry aloud”), Old Saxon wōpian (“to bewail”), Old High German wuofan (“to bewail”), Old Norse œpa (“to scream, shout”) and Gothic 𐍅𐍉𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wōpjan, “to cry aloud, call”).[7][8][5][9] The OED calls it a Common Germanic verb, probably weak at first but drawn in West Germanic into the reduplicating class of strong verbs;[7] it is built on the noun seen in Old English wōp (“weeping, outcry”), Old Saxon wōp (“lamentation”), Old High German wuof (“lamentation”) and Old Norse óp (“cry”).[7][9][2] No certain cognates are known outside Germanic, and the word is probably imitative of wailing or sobbing.[7][9][8][10][11][12] Etymonline nevertheless reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *wab- (“to cry, scream”), comparing Latin vāpulō (“to be flogged”) and an Old Church Slavonic verb meaning "to call";[2] Merriam-Webster and Partridge make the same Slavic comparison.[4][13] Skeat notes that it is not related to whoop.[14] The weak past tense wept appeared in the 13th century and became the usual form in the 14th.[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To shed tears, to cry aloud in grief: before 899, in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care,[5] and in the Old English translation of Bede.[7] In Old English it could also mean to bewail or mourn over, and to complain.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English wepen still meant to express grief by outcry,[2] and breste a-wepe was to burst into tears.[2][7] Weekley saw in the word's history, from an outcry to restrained tears, the progress of a demonstrative people towards a reserved one.[15] Over time the meaning narrowed to shedding tears,[2] and Word Origins notes that the modern verb usually means a more or less silent weeping.[12] From 1387, in Trevisa, things could weep, shedding moisture in drops,[7] and Etymonline dates "of stones, walls: to give out moisture" to about 1400.[2] The verb was used of animals from about 1400,[7] and of something trickling like tears from 1600, in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2.[7] The phrase weep Irish, to weep without feeling like a hired mourner at an Irish wake, is recorded from 1577.[7] Johnson (1755) also gave the transitive sense "to lament with tears; to bewail".[16] The noun meant weeping or lamentation from about 1275 to 1545, and came back in 1836 as a fit of weeping and in 1838 as a seeping of moisture.[7] In Scotland and in English counties from Yorkshire to Cornwall, weep meant to drip or leak, as of a barrel.[17]

Timeline

  • before 899 – Old English wēpan, to shed tears, cry.[5]
  • before 1200 – Middle English weopen.[5]
  • c. 1275 – noun, weeping, lamentation (obsolete by 1545).[7]
  • c. 1300 – wepen.[5]
  • 1387 – of things, to shed moisture in drops.[7]
  • c. 1400 – of animals.[7]
  • 1577 – weep Irish, to weep without feeling.[7]
  • 1600 – to trickle like tears.[7]
  • 1836 – noun, a fit of weeping.[7]
  • 1838 – noun, a seeping of moisture.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To shed tears from grief or another strong feeling; to cry: The old soldier wept at the memorial.[18][4][7]
  2. To mourn or lament for someone or something: They wept for their lost friends.[18][4][7]
  3. To shed tears of a given kind: to weep tears of relief.[18][4]
  4. Of a wound or a surface, to give out drops of fluid; to ooze.[18][7]

Noun

  1. A fit of weeping.[18][4][7]
  2. A seeping or leak of moisture.[4][7]

Word family

  • outweep
  • weeper
  • weepie
  • beweep
  • weepy
  • weeping willow
  • weep hole

Usage notes

Word Origins notes that weep is now normally a literary word.[12] Merriam-Webster also lists a noun weep, the lapwing, of imitative origin.[4] In East Anglia and Devon the verb was used of birds, especially for a plaintive chirping note.[17]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins