cry
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cry", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cry" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "cry" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cry is aEnglishverb. It means: To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness. Pronounced /kɹaɪ/. It ranks #2,525 in English word frequency. Often confused with CT and cs.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cry |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /kɹaɪ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,525 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cry is 3 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹaɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,525 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for cry in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CT", "cs", "CV", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is from Middle English crien (13th century), from Old French crier, from Vulgar Latin *crītāre, generally thought to derive from Classical Latin quirītāre (Proto-West Germanic *krītan has also been suggested as a source). The noun corresponds to Mi… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is cry, spelled C-R-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To shed tears; to weep, especially in anger or sadness.
- 2To utter loudly; to call out; to declare publicly.
- 3To shout, scream, yell.
- 4To forcefully attract attention or proclaim one’s presence.
- 5To utter inarticulate sounds, as animals do.
- 6To cause to do something, or bring to some state, by crying or weeping.
- 7To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc.
- 8To make oral and public proclamation of; to notify or advertise by outcry, especially things lost or found, goods to be sold, auctioned, etc.
Etymology
The verb is from Middle English crien (13th century), from Old French crier, from Vulgar Latin *crītāre, generally thought to derive from Classical Latin quirītāre (Proto-West Germanic *krītan has also been suggested as a source). The noun corresponds to Middle English cry, crie, from Old French cri, a deverbal of crier. etymology note Middle English crien eventually displaced native Middle English galen (“to cry out”) (from Old English galan), Middle English greden (“to cry out”) (from Old English grǣdan), Middle English yermen (“to bellow, mourn, lament”) (from Old English ġierman), Middle English hooen, hoen (“to cry out”) (from Old Norse hóa), Middle English remen (“to cry, shout”) (from Old English hrīeman, compare Old English hrēam (“noise, outcry, lamentation, alarm”)), Middle English greten, graten (“to weep, cry, lament”) (from Old English grǣtan and Old Norse gráta). More at greet, regret. Already in the 13th century, the meaning was extended to include the sense "to shed tears" (natively weep); cry used in this sense had mostly replaced weep by the 16th century.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #2,525 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: