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

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 When the coroner’s deputy lifted Malachi’s body to take it away that night in October 2023, there was no wailing or sobbing from his parents. — Audrey Dutton, ProPublica, 25 Aug. 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

Warren joked, as several audience members had been screaming to hear his hit during his set.

— Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone, 24 Oct. 2026
Four pledges at a Texas State University fraternity were arrested on Tuesday after an 18-year-old was allegedly forced into a pickup truck and heard screaming, according to police.

— Adam Sabes, FOXNews.com, 23 Oct. 2026

Definition of screaming

Verb

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
The living room and bedrooms faced 96th, a crosstown corridor over which ambulances and police cars sped day and night, their sirens howling.

— Via Scribner, Literary Hub, 9 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

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
East Suffolk, a windblown span of marshy coastland, has a reputation for stark, mournful beauty, and for drawing creative people with a taste for isolation and escape.

— Nathan Heller, New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2026

Definition of mournful

Verb

That March, a seventy-year-old patient from a wealthy Cypriot family, Evie Lanitis, arrived at BioMed, complaining of a host of minor maladies, including bursitis in her toes, dental pain, and digestive issues.

— D. T. Max, New Yorker, 26 Oct. 2026
This was the first opportunity, Ubovic said, to do something tangible, instead of just complaining.

— Chris Massaro, FOXNews.com, 23 Oct. 2026

Definition of complaining

Verb

Working again with the vast Northeastern producer group $$$–almost all of whom are individually credited on, like, every track–Bank$ and his preacher friend talk to God over spare keys and groaning nautical machinery.

— Olivier Lafontant, Pitchfork, 19 Oct. 2026
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

Definition of groaning

Adjective

The broadcaster reported that more than a hundred people had gathered in and around the church for a funeral procession.

— Mohamad El Chamaa, Washington Post, 23 Oct. 2026
Talking about wills, medical wishes, funeral arrangements or who will handle the finances if a parent becomes incapacitated can feel intrusive, particularly when a parent is still healthy and independent.

— Angelica Leicht, CBS News, 20 Oct. 2026