make moan

present singular third person makes moan · participle present making moan · participle past made moan · past made moan

1. ScotlandpoeticTo lament, complain.

   These yellow cowslip cheeks / Are gone, are gone. Lovers, make moan.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   1 more example

   when, too late awaking, well they kent / That their fayre guest was gone, they both begonne / To make exceeding mone, as they had been undonne.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

2. poeticTo moan, to make a moaning sound.

   In the bleak mid-winter / Frosty wind made moan, / Earth stood hard as iron, / Water like a stone […]

   1872, Christina Rossetti, In the Bleak Midwinter

   1 more example

   I made a garland for her head, / And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; / She looked at me as she did love, / And made sweet moan.

   1819, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad