WAILING Synonyms: 207 Similar and Opposite Words

wailing 1 of 2

adjective

as in weeping

expressing or suggesting mourning a wailing quality in her voice that makes her a natural for country music

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wailing

2 of 2

verb

present participle of wail

as in screaming

to express dissatisfaction, pain, or resentment usually tiresomely the state's residents are always wailing about their high taxes

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as in howling

to make a long loud mournful sound the women stood beside the coffins, wailing for their fallen sons and daughters

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as in moaning

to utter a moan the patient lay in her bed, occasionally softly wailing in pain

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of wailing

Adjective

Sitting opposite an old people’s home in a residential corner of Paris’ 14th arrondissement, La Santé’s unassuming presence is only given away by the occasional wailing siren as prisoners are transported to and from the site. — Joseph Ataman, CNN Money, 14 Oct. 2025

Verb

This is punctured by a wailing refrain from Lyons, whose runs serve as a continual anchor to the jazz tradition throughout his time with Taylor. — Levi Dayan, Pitchfork, 3 Nov. 2026 After years of wailing and gnashing of teeth over salary caps and payrolls and free agency, Tampa and Milwaukee demonstrate that most of those concerns are overblown. — Ian Miller Outkick, FOXNews.com, 21 Oct. 2026 Then fire trucks began wailing their way closer, broadcasting urgent calls to evacuate. — Maia Szalavitz, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2026 Moirologists, as they’re now known, were usually women, and their job was to display grief by crying, wailing, and tearing their hair. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 Oct. 2026 Luann is unfazed and unmoving, cigar in hand, fedora on her head, posing for the camera despite the woman wailing from beneath her ass. — Tom Smyth, Vulture, 28 Sep. 2026 The bold clarity of the performances was energizing, but the wailing sometimes sounded like parody grief. — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2026 Except kids being kids, my son would keep needling and my daughter would keep wailing. — Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 9 Sep. 2026 Osama, donning his bulletproof blue press jacket and armed with his camera, is accosted by a woman wailing that 200 of her neighbors are gone. — Ritesh Mehta, IndieWire, 5 Sep. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for wailing

Adjective

And every day, across from them, outside the clinic, about to enter or just leaving, there were women hugging each other and weeping.

— David Mamet, National Review, 11 Aug. 2022
The show manages to stay on the brink — always laughing, never quite weeping — for its entire length.

— Helen Shaw, Vulture, 8 Dec. 2021

Definition of weeping

Verb

Wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who had seven catches for 133 yards and a touchdown, was screaming at coaches and teammates on the sideline at the start of the fourth quarter.

— Joe Reedy, Chicago Tribune, 8 Nov. 2026
Wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who was held to seven catches for 133 yards and a touchdown, was screaming at coaches and teammates on the sideline at the start of the fourth quarter.

— ABC News, ABC News, 7 Nov. 2026

Definition of screaming

Verb

Egerton makes inspired choices, howling with sadistic glee during his pursuit.

— Robert Daniels, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2026
But that’s what has been proposed here even as the sane heads in the City Council and beyond have been howling for, and shown the way toward, efficiencies.

— The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 22 Oct. 2026

Definition of howling

Verb

It's been a big few months for Austin Abrams moaning and groaning his way through some of the worst situations imaginable.

— Megan McCluskey, Time, 16 Oct. 2026
For a cold moment the silence locked a grip on our table, though it was broken, at the edges, by the golf commentators moaning and harrumphing, Rory McIlroy having had a canary on a seventeenth fairway somewhere this championship Sunday.

— Kevin Barry, New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2026

Definition of moaning

Adjective

Unfortunately, the disembodied feet on my aunt’s staircase were my last spectral sighting and the mournful whistling was my last haunting.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 30 Oct. 2026
The One About Matthew Perry, a three-part docuseries, out October 27 on Netflix, is more of a celebration of celebrate Perry’s life instead of a mournful tribute or true crime drama about his death and the headline-making trial that followed.

— Bethy Squires, Vulture, 25 Oct. 2026

Definition of mournful

Verb

By July, morale among immigration officers had dipped below its nadir during the Biden Administration, with agents now complaining of being overextended, inundated with novice recruits, and undermined by inflammatory rhetoric from on high.

— Francisco Cantú, New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2026
Some 35,000 plaintiffs were compensated after complaining of personal injury and property damage to their homes.

— ABC News, ABC News, 2 Nov. 2026

Definition of complaining

Adjective

On Tuesday, the classic served as a funeral dirge for the roughly 800 people present who backed Hilton.

— Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times, 7 Nov. 2026
The funeral car draped with floral arrangements arrived slowly to the church in the town of Navahermosa in central Spain.

— ABC News, ABC News, 5 Nov. 2026