moan

From Middle English mone, mane, mān, (also as mene), from Old English *mān, *mǣn (“complaint; lamentation”), from Proto-Germanic *mainō (“opinion; mind”). Cognate with Old Frisian mēne (“opinion”), Old High German meina (“opinion”). Old English *mān, *mǣn is inferred from Old English mǣnan (“to complain over; grieve; mourn”). More at mean.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məʊn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /moʊn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊn
• Homophone: mown

moan (plural moans)

1. a low, mournful cry of pain, sorrow or pleasure

moan (third-person singular simple present moans, present participle moaning, simple past and past participle moaned)

1. (transitive, now rare) To complain about; to bemoan, to bewail; to mourn. [from 13th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.7:

     Much did the Craven seeme to mone his case […].

   • Prior

     Ye floods, ye woods, ye echoes, moan / My dear Columbo, dead and gone.

2. (intransitive, now chiefly poetic) To grieve. [from 14th c.]
3. (transitive, obsolete) To distress (someone); to sadden. [15th-17th c.]
   • Beaumont and Fletcher

     which infinitely moans me

4. (intransitive) To make a moan or similar sound. [from 18th c.]
5. (transitive) To say in a moan, or with a moaning voice. [from 19th c.]

   ‘Please don't leave me,’ he moaned.

6. (intransitive, colloquial) To complain; to grumble. [from 20th c.]

• See also Thesaurus:complain

• moaner
• moany

• bemoan

• murmur
• protest
• lament

• moan in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• moan in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Amon, Mano, Mona, NOMA, Noam, Oman, Onam, mano, mona, noma

• moen

• IPA^(key): /ˈmwãːn/

moan

1. thin, slender

• tanav

• tev

moan

1. Genitive singular form of moa.

• Oman, oman