as in wail
a crying out in grief
there was a great lamentation on Wall Street when the government's latest unemployment figures were published
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Recent Examples of lamentation
Give us your final lamentations on this year’s crop of cancellations in a comment below.
—
Dave Nemetz, TVLine, 21 May 2025
Studio Nicholas Venezia In Janáček’s Quartet No. 1, the Takács ratcheted up the genre’s conversational quality into high drama, widening the expressive gulf between the opening lamentation and the skittering response.
—Justin Davidson, Vulture, 2 May 2025
One third of the way into Katie Kitamura’s 2017 novel, A Separation, its narrator asks an elderly Greek woman to demonstrate a traditional funeral lamentation.
—Lidija Haas, Harper's Magazine, 3 Mar. 2025
Biblical-style lamentations over Israel’s final corruption have been a staple of the state’s critics and die-hard anti-Zionists for 70 years.
—Martin Kramer, Foreign Affairs, 8 June 2016
See All Example Sentences for lamentation
Dave Nemetz, TVLine, 21 May 2025
Studio Nicholas Venezia In Janáček’s Quartet No. 1, the Takács ratcheted up the genre’s conversational quality into high drama, widening the expressive gulf between the opening lamentation and the skittering response.
—Justin Davidson, Vulture, 2 May 2025
One third of the way into Katie Kitamura’s 2017 novel, A Separation, its narrator asks an elderly Greek woman to demonstrate a traditional funeral lamentation.
—Lidija Haas, Harper's Magazine, 3 Mar. 2025
Biblical-style lamentations over Israel’s final corruption have been a staple of the state’s critics and die-hard anti-Zionists for 70 years.
—Martin Kramer, Foreign Affairs, 8 June 2016
See All Example Sentences for lamentation
Recent Examples of Synonyms for lamentation
Noun
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Low, ominous bass riffs giving way to a distorted wail of electric guitar signaled that this was the juncture in American history when the gloves came off and the real ass-kicking began.—
Seth Harp,
Harpers Magazine,
19 Sep. 2025
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Were his character more precisely defined, Battle’s wail of feeling might carry you past the awkwardness of the songwriting, the nagging questions about what’s meant to be translucent or not, but here both character and emotion are indistinct.—
Jackson McHenry,
Vulture,
19 Sep. 2025
Noun
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For their part, Benjamin’s children aren’t moved to tears in the wake of his death either.—
Aramide Tinubu,
Variety,
25 Sep. 2025
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That’s when the tears really came.—
Brad Schmitt,
Nashville Tennessean,
25 Sep. 2025
Noun
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White had spoken with Mitchell at length over the offseason after becoming the Indiana head coach to get to know her star player off the court; part of that experience involved helping Mitchell process the mourning of her father, who had died unexpectedly before the 2024 season.—
Sabreena Merchant,
New York Times,
29 Sep. 2025
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Fasting is also common in the LDS church in times of mourning.—
Holly Yan,
CNN Money,
29 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Told through empathetic interviews with his bandmates and family, Struebing’s ordeal becomes a tale of partial redemption and a lament about the failure of our justice system to meet the mental-health needs of people caught up in it.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
29 Sep. 2025
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The same lament was played during Queen Elizabeth's funeral in 2022.—
Stephanie Petit,
PEOPLE,
16 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The character Justin, whose latent gay identity has functioned mostly as a backdoor punchline up to this point, finally develops feelings for a boy in his high-school theater program (tale as old as time) and the young love culminates in a cry-worthy way.—
James Factora,
Them.,
26 Sep. 2025
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The first word that people associate with laugh is cry, and that tells us something.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
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As church members left the multiplex theater reunification site, some rushed to family and friends waiting outside, hugging and weeping.—
Kristen Jordan Shamus,
Freep.com,
28 Sep. 2025
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Suppose the mental triggers for weeping are the antithesis of the triggers for laughter.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Even his mistake for Damsgaard’s opener brought more of a stunned silence than exasperated groans or impulsive anger from the locals.—
Anantaajith Raghuraman,
New York Times,
22 Sep. 2025
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The cheers that accompanied the sixth-inning rally quickly turned to groans in the top of the seventh when struggling Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech walked Jung Hoo-Lee and Bailey to open the inning before striking out Drew Gilbert.—
Mike Digiovanna,
Oc Register,
19 Sep. 2025
Noun
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With his singular, deafening howl, Lindberg helped put At the Gates at the forefront of Gothenburg, Sweden’s melodic death metal revolution.—
Jon Blistein,
Rolling Stone,
16 Sep. 2025
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The wind’s howl filled my left ear and the music blasted from my speakers filled my right.—
Manuel Muñoz,
Literary Hub,
11 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Lamentation.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lamentation. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
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