Home › Glossary › Letter M

Mourning cry

Form
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

A vocalized poetic expression of grief, typically raw, rhythmic, and communal

Detailed Definition
Mourning cry is a raw, exclamatory line in poetry that vocalizes primal grief through fragmented syntax, repetition, or onomatopoeia—like “O!” or “Alas!”—evoking the spontaneous wail of bereavement; it serves as emotional catharsis and ritual utterance, bridging personal pain with universal expressions of loss across cultures and eras.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Lament for Art O’Leary,” the cry “Airt! Airt!” opens the poem; Traditional Irish keens begin with high-pitched wails; Yeats’s “The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner” opens with “Although I shelter from the rain”; Seamus Heaney’s “The Strand at Lough Beg” uses “dabbing” as ritual cry
Additional Notes
Mourning cries are vocalized expressions of grief in poetry; often open laments with exclamations (“Alas!”); rooted in oral tradition; use repetition and high emotion; avoid melodrama by grounding in specific loss
Also Known As
Lamentation cry elegiac wail sorrowful exclamation mournful invocation Keening verse
Skip to main content