Skip to main content
PlainSpell

wail

/weɪl/verb, noun

wail is spelled W-A-I-L: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 32,798th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, wail means “To cry out, as in sorrow or anguish” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in wail?

Letters4: W-A-I-L
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 1 million words; the 32,798th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is wail?

Wail appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 32,798th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce wail?

  • /weɪl/
  • [weɪɫ]

Wail has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-wail.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with wail

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

wail vs whale0 B
wail vs wale0 B

Sounds like: wale, whale (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with wail?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as wail.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: wali, liwa, wila.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of wail

  • wails present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • wailing participle, present
  • wailed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does wail mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.

  2. 2

    To weep, lament persistently or bitterly.

  3. 3

    To make a noise like mourning or crying.

    The wind wailed and the rain streamed down.

  4. 4

    To lament; to bewail; to grieve over.

    to wail one's death

  5. 5

    slangTo perform with great liveliness and force.

  6. 6

    obsoleteSynonym of wale (“to choose; to select”).

noun

  1. 1

    A prolonged cry, usually high-pitched, especially as of grief or anguish.

    She let out a loud, doleful wail.

  2. 2

    Any similar sound as of lamentation; a howl.

    The wail of snow-dark winter winds.

  3. 3

    A sound made by emergency vehicle sirens, contrasted with "yelp" which is higher-pitched and faster.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Wail in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchgémir (to cry out), se lamenter, vagir (to weep, lament), gémissement, plainte (loud cry or shriek)
Germanjammern, heulen (to cry out), wehklagen (to weep, lament), Schrei, Schmerzensschrei (loud cry or shriek), klagen (to grieve over)
Spanishllorar, lamentar, llantear, soltar vagidos (to cry out), gemido (loud cry or shriek), gemir (to make a sound like crying)
Portuguesegemido (loud cry or shriek)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does wail come from?

c. 1300, Middle English weilen, waylen (“to sob, cry, wail”), from Old Norse væla (“to wail”), from væ, vei (“woe”), from Proto-Germanic *wai (whence also Old English wā (“woe”) (English woe)), from Proto-Indo-European *wáy. The verb is first attested in the intransitive sense; the transitive sense developed in mid-14ᵗʰ c.. The noun came from the verb.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after wail