Home › Glossary › Letter G

Greet

Dialect
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To weep or cry; one of the most distinctive and poetically rich Scots verbs.

Detailed Definition
"Greet" is the Scots word for weeping, and its very difference from English "cry" signals the depth of Scottish emotional vocabulary. It appears throughout Scots verse in laments, elegies, and moments of private grief, and it carries a rawness that "weep" sometimes lacks. The word is associated with the Scots capacity for expressed emotion without sentimentality, and in poems of loss and parting it becomes a vehicle for authentic, unguarded feeling. To greet in Scots verse is to mourn truthfully.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Greet" means to weep or cry; Burns refers to weeping throughout; A poet might write: "She sat doun by the burn tae greet — / the water answered wi' its beat." for a grief poem; "He never learned tae greet till late — / then tears came flooding through the gate." explores suppressed emotion; "Let yersel greet when greet ye must — / weeping, like rain, is right and just." encourages emotional expression; "The bairn would greet at every stone — / but grief that early was quickly flown." contrasts childhood and adult sorrow; "Greet for the lost, the left behind, / the self ye left tae time's unwind." uses weeping as tribute; "Even the river greets in spate — / the land itself knows loss and weight." personifies natural grief
Additional Notes
Greet is one of the great Scots verbs — so emotionally charged that its very sound seems to carry the weight of sorrow. To "greet" in Scots is not a polite social exchange but an act of deep feeling; Scots does not use "greet" to mean "say hello" (that is "hail" or simply "say"), reserving it entirely for weeping. This precision is important: the word's unambiguous emotional charge makes it powerful in verse. In the ballad tradition, characters "greet" at moments of loss, parting, and recognition. Burns uses it tenderly and without condescension. For students, "greet" is a reminder of how a single, culturally specific verb can carry far more emotional information than its dictionary definition suggests.
Also Known As
Cry Weep Lament
Skip to main content