lamentation

What it means

1. countableuncountableThe act of lamenting.

   About John Marin, there move sad, disgruntled beings, full of talk and lamentations. [...] They bewail the fact that in America, soil is poor and unconducive to growth, and men remain unmoved by growing green. But Marin persists, and what ebullience and good humour, in the rocky ungentle loam?

   1922 April, Paul Rosenfeld, “The Water-Colours of John Marin: A Note on the Work of the First American Painter of the Day”, in John Peale Bishop, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 18, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 48, column 2

2. countableuncountableA sorrowful cry; a lament.

   Antonyms: jubilation

3. countableuncountableSpecifically, mourning.

   Antonyms: celebration

In a sentence

About John Marin, there move sad, disgruntled beings, full of talk and lamentations. [...] They bewail the fact that in America, soil is poor and unconducive to growth, and men remain unmoved by growing green. But Marin persists, and what ebullience and good humour, in the rocky ungentle loam?

1922 April, Paul Rosenfeld, “The Water-Colours of John Marin: A Note on the Work of the First American Painter of the Day”, in John Peale Bishop, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 18, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 48, column 2

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*leh₂-
2. Proto-Indo-European*léh₂mn̥tom
3. Proto-Italic*lāmentom
4. Latinlāmentum
5. Latinlāmentor
6. Latinlāmentātiō
7. Middle Frenchlamentation
8. Latinlāmentātiō
9. Middle Englishlamentacioun
10. Englishlamentation

Recorded since 1375, from Middle English lamentacioun, from Middle French lamentation and its etymon Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. By surface analysis, lament + -ation.