make moan
verb- when, too late awaking, well they kent / That their fayre guest was gone, they both begonne / To make exceeding mone, as they had been undonne.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- These yellow cowslip cheeks / Are gone, are gone. Lovers, make moan.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
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Poetic To moan, to make a moaning sound.
- I made a garland for her head, / And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; / She looked at me as she did love, / And made sweet moan.1819, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad:
- In the bleak mid-winter / Frosty wind made moan, / Earth stood hard as iron, / Water like a stone […]1872, Christina Rossetti, In the Bleak Midwinter: