the.com/wail
the sound grief makes when words give up and leave the body
means To cry out in a long, loud, mournful sound, usually from grief, pain, or distress.
from From Old Norse "væla" — to lament — and likely echoic at heart, the kind of word that simply imitates the sound it names. Its cousin "woe" comes from a different root, but they keep close company; both are the language reaching for a noise that exists before vocabulary does.
- origin
- From Old Norse vaela, meaning to lament loudly
- professional grief
- Hired mourners called wailers cry at funerals worldwide
- baby tech
- Newborn wails peak near 3500 hertz, biologically unignorable
- music slang
- To wail also means to play an instrument ferociously
wall of sound — phil spector's recording technique used on the ronettes and the righteous brothers in the 1960s
western wall — retaining wall in jerusalem's old city where people pray and mourn, site of jewish pilgrimage since 70 ce
banshee wail — supernatural keening sound in irish folklore, associated with the death of family members