Meanings
present singular third person beweeps · participle present beweeping · participle past bewept · past bewept
- transitiveTo weep over; weep for; weep about; deplore; lament.
c. 1593, Michael Drayton, The Shepheards Garland, The Second Eglog, 2nd edition, With Nymphs and shepheards yearly moane His timeless death beweeping. In telling that my hart alone Hath his last will in keeping.
2 more examples
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state
1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLCLet Gods, men, brutes, beweep him, plants and stones. So shall she know your loss was dear indeed. And bend her heart, and give you Balder back.
1855, Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead, Part III, lines 44-46Synonyms: bewail, bemoan, afterthink, becry, begrieve, bemoan, bemourn, bewail
- intransitiveTo weep.
Fast by her style doth wery labour stand./ Pale fere also, and sorrow all bewept
c. 1500, Thomas More, To Them that Trust in Fortune5 more examples
Child! Arline! wilt thou? darest thou heap A stain thine after life will beweep, On these hairs by thee and sorrow bleach'd On this hear dishonour never reach'd.
1843, Alfred Bunn, The new grand opera In Three Acts of The Bohemian Girl., page 30And therefore saith Job to God, ' Suffer, Lord, that I may a while bewail and beweep, ere I go without returning to the dark land, covered with the darkness of death ; to the land of misease and of darkness, whereas is the shadow of death; whereas is no order nor ordinance, but grisly dread that ever shall last.'
1875, Charles Cowden Clarke, The Canterbury tales of Chaucer, with notes by T. Tyrwhitt., page 196Cinnamongirl: I am in disgrace in my fellow maidens' eyes and I do beweep alone in my outcast state.
2007, Cathy Hopkins, Starting Over, →ISBNAnyway, not wishing to speak too much of myself- for 'my Auschwitz adolescence to whom beweep?/ Since my Belsen boyhood sent all to sleep'- I'll just take a single incident from my childhood to show how, 'Midnight's children' fashion, I too changed history by Giving Saddam Hussein the idea for biological weapons.
2007, Vivek Iyer, Samlee's Daughter: A Novel, →ISBNHow could I condemn a name that honours so many of my friends for whose distance or loss I now beweep?
2014, Vincenzo Cuoco, Bruce Haddock, Filippo Sabetti, Historical Essay on the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, →ISBN, page 114Synonyms: shed tears, burst into tears, cry, cry one's eyes out, greet, shed a tear, shed tears, squirt some
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo weep over; weep for; weep about; deplore; lament.
verbTo weep.
Origin
- Proto-West Germanic*biwōpijan“to weep over”
- Old Englishbewēpan“to weep over, mourn, bewail”
- Middle Englishbewepen
- Englishbeweep
From Middle English bewepen, biwepen, from Old English bewēpan (“to weep over, mourn, bewail”), from Proto-West Germanic *biwōpijan (“to weep over”), equivalent to be- + weep. Cognate with Old Frisian biwēpa (“to beweep”), Old Saxon biwōpian (“to beweep”).
More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-West Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with beweep
Cite this entry
beweep. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/beweep
“beweep.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/beweep. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “beweep,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/beweep.
Source: beweep on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.