moan

From Middle English mone, mane, mān, (also as mene), from Old English *mān, *mǣn (“complaint; lamentation”), from Proto-West Germanic *mainu, 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) enPR: mōn, IPA^(key): /məʊn/
• (US) enPR: mōn, IPA^(key): /moʊn/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -əʊn
• Homophone: mown

moan (plural moans)

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

   let out a deep moan

   We heard the distant moan of a stag in pain.

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, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

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

   • 1708, Matthew Prior, the Turtle and the Sparrow

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

2. (intransitive, now chiefly poetic) To grieve. [from 14th c.]
3. (intransitive) To make a moan or similar sound. [from 18th c.]

   She moaned with pleasure and squirmed with delight from receiving oral sex.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, OCLC 1023879857, page 169:

     They shared a common dread that he would begin moaning.

4. (transitive) To say in a moan, or with a moaning voice. [from 19th c.]

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

5. (intransitive, colloquial) To complain; to grumble. [from 20th c.]
6. (transitive, obsolete) To distress (someone); to sadden. [15th–17th c.]
   • 1626 February 1 (licensing date)​, John Fletcher [et al.], “The Faire Maide of the Inne”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, OCLC 3083972, Act V, scene i:

     which infinitely moans me

• 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, maon, mona, noma

• moen

From Middle Breton moen, from Old Breton moin, from Proto-Brythonic *muɨn (“beautiful”). Compare Welsh mwyn (“mild, gentle”)), Irish maoin (“property, riches”)), Latin mūnis (“obliging”), Old English mǣne (“common”)).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmwãːn/

moan

1. thin, slender

   Synonym: tanav

   Antonym: tev

moan

1. genitive singular of moa

• Oman, oman

moan

1. Alternative form of mawen
   • 1927, “ZONG OF TWI MAARKEET MOANS”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, line 1:

     A moan vrim a Bearlough an anoor vrim a Baak,

     A woman from the Bearlough and another from the Beak,

From Middle English mone, from Old English mān, from Proto-West Germanic *mainu.

moan

1. moan
   • 1927, “LAMENT OF A WIDOW”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, line 1:

     Ochone! to fo shul Ich maak mee moan,

     Ochone, to whom shall I make my moan,

• Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 129 & 130