waul

present singular third person wauls · participle present wauling · participle past wauled · past wauled · alternative obsolete wrawl

1. To wail, to cry plaintively.

   Thou know’st, the first time that we smell the air, / We waul, and cry.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]

   2 more examples

   The Catapult wauled, "What if some poor man's dog was saved, — it was his comfort and defence; — he shared with the faithful creature his bread and butter: and when he dies, who watches his grave, — who, if we may so say, sheds a tear for the departed? — who, who, but his dog?[…]"

   1850, Sylvester Judd, Richard Edney and the Governor's Family, page 298

   A cattish ghost-familiar wauls from a monument's bronze shoulder, seeing him see it, and he shrieks back in its own language, pulling a face so horrible that pedestrians scatter out of his path, their white cottons flapping.

   2004, Michael Cisco, The San Veneficio Canon, page 75