bemoan
/bɪˈmoʊn/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.29 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To be dismayed or worried about (someone), particularly because of their situation or what has happened to them.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "He bemoaned the drought but went on watering his lawn."
- "The losse of this erle was greatly bemoned by men of al degrees, for he was liberal, gentle, humble, and curteous to eche one […]"
- "[…] after deliberately marrying General Shaw with no warmer feeling than respect for his character and establishment, [she] was constantly, though quietly, bemoaning her hard lot in being united to one whom she could not love."
- "“I am sure you are better off without Mr. Hogg,” Helena would say often when Georgina bemoaned her husband’s desertion."
- ""Directoritis strikes again!" bemoans Dan Sullivan, who believes that the director of Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon replaces the characters' intellectual and verbal energy with "transparent rationalizations for the personal hang-ups of the characters […]"
- "He’d have told that horrible sister of his that more coloureds had just turned up. How many is it now? they’d have said to each other. Fifty? Sixty? ‘You’ll have to speak to her, Cyril,’ she’d have told him, before bemoaning how respectable this street was before they came."
Etymology
From Middle English bemenen, bimenen, from Old English bemǣnan (“to bemoan, bewail, lament”); equivalent to be- (“about, concerning”) + moan. Alteration of vowel from Middle to Modern English due to analogy with moan.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: bemenen, bemǣnan
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bɪˈmoʊn/
- British English: /bɪˈməʊn/