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moan

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

A low, sustained murmur of physical suffering, grief, or longing; used in elegies and romantic verse to express deep emotional pain.

Detailed Definition
This word is common enough in modern English, but in older poetry it can also suggest a plaintive, musical lament. Here it helps make the lady’s speech sound eerie and sorrowful.
Example
Example in poetry:
In the lyric “She looked at me as she did love, / And made sweet moan,” moan means a soft sound of grief, desire, or complaint; A moan can be a noun for the sound itself or a verb, as in “the wind moaned”; “The cello’s moan crossed the station after midnight” transfers human lament to music; Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” hears “the sad heart of Ruth,” illustrating how lyric sound can carry wordless sorrow
Additional Notes
In this poem the noun “moan” is used in a poetic, slightly old-fashioned way that may prompt a reader to pause.; Found in the poem, La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats
Also Known As
lament wail lamentation dirge
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