beweep

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English

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Etymology

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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).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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beweep (third-person singular simple present beweeps, present participle beweeping, simple past and past participle bewept)

  1. (transitive) To weep over; weep for; weep about; deplore; lament.
  2. (intransitive) To weep.
    • c. 1500, Thomas More, To Them that Trust in Fortune:
      Fast by her style doth wery labour stand./ Pale fere also, and sorrow all bewept
    • 1843, Alfred Bunn, The new grand opera In Three Acts of The Bohemian Girl., page 30:
      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.
    • 1875, Charles Cowden Clarke, The Canterbury tales of Chaucer, with notes by T. Tyrwhitt., page 196:
      And 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.'
    • 2007, Cathy Hopkins, Starting Over, →ISBN:
      Cinnamongirl: I am in disgrace in my fellow maidens' eyes and I do beweep alone in my outcast state.
    • 2007, Vivek Iyer, Samlee's Daughter: A Novel, →ISBN:
      Anyway, 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.
    • 2014, Vincenzo Cuoco, Bruce Haddock, Filippo Sabetti, Historical Essay on the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, →ISBN, page 114:
      How could I condemn a name that honours so many of my friends for whose distance or loss I now beweep?

Derived terms

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References

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