make moan

English

Verb

make moan (third-person singular simple present makes moan, present participle making moan, simple past and past participle made moan)

  1. (now chiefly Scotland) To lament, complain.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 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):
      These yellow cowslip cheeks / Are gone, are gone. Lovers, make moan.
    • 1872, Christina Rossetti, In the Bleak Midwinter:
      In the bleak mid-winter / Frosty wind made moan, / Earth stood hard as iron, / Water like a stone […]
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