lamentation

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English

Beweinung Christi (Lamentation of Christ, 1509) by German painter Bernhard Strigel. The lamentation of Christ is a common subject in Christian art, and shows Jesus being mourned by his family and friends after his crucifixion and descent from the Cross.

Etymology

Recorded since 1375, from Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. Lament is a 16th-century back-formation.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˌlæm.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/, /ˌlæm.ɪnˈteɪ.ʃən/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

lamentation (countable and uncountable, plural lamentations)

  1. The act of lamenting.
    • 1922 April, Paul Rosenfeld, “The Water-Colours of John Marin: A Note on the Work of the First American Painter of the Day”, in John Peale Bishop, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 18, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 48, column 2:
      About John Marin, there move sad, disgruntled beings, full of talk and lamentations. [...] They bewail the fact that in America, soil is poor and unconducive to growth, and men remain unmoved by growing green. But Marin persists, and what ebullience and good humour, in the rocky ungentle loam?
  2. A sorrowful cry; a lament.
  3. Specifically, mourning.
  4. lamentatio, (part of) a liturgical Bible text (from the book of Job) and its musical settings, usually in the plural; hence, any dirge
  5. A group of swans.

Related terms

Translations

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References

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French, from Latin lāmentātiōnem (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Pronunciation

Noun

lamentation f (plural lamentations)

  1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint

Related terms

Further reading

Middle French

Etymology

From Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Noun

lamentation f (plural lamentations)

  1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint
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