The story
- Old English · inherited frombemǣnan“to bemoan, bewail, lament”
- Middle English · inherited frombemenen
- English todaybemoan
From Middle English bemenen, bimenen, from Old English bemǣnan (“to bemoan, bewail, lament”); equivalent to be- (“about, concerning”) + moan. Alteration of vowel from Middle to Modern English due to analogy with moan.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishbemenen all →
bemean
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.