cry
/kraɪ/verb, noun
utter a loud sound or shed tears
From Classical Latin quīritāre (to wail or shriek).
Lineage
The story
A Roman voice raised in anguish may be hiding inside this tiny English word. Latin quīritāre meant “to wail” or “shriek,” and it passed through Vulgar Latin *crītāre and Old French crier before arriving in Middle English as crien around the thirteenth century. English then made a dramatic semantic leap: the same word used for shouting, begging, and advertising aloud began to cover shedding tears, a meaning that largely displaced the older English verb weep by the sixteenth century. Nobody is certain where the Latin form came from; one ancient folk explanation linked it to the Quirites, Roman citizens supposedly called upon for help, while another theory hears an imitation of a squealing pig. So when someone cries today, the word still preserves two ancient scenes at once: a public voice ringing through a Roman street and private grief leaking from the eyes.
Modern usage
A humorous description of producing tears, including from intense emotion, irritation, or manipulation.
- Heard in
- internet slang