(a) The act of shedding tears, weeping, sobbing, esp. as an outward expression of sorrow or painful emotion; the instinctive crying or wailing of an infant; Christ’s shedding of tears as a sign of his humanity; ~ times, occasions of weeping; (b) an instance of weeping as an audible expression of grief, a burst of tears, fit of crying; (c) the shedding of tears as an act of penance, a sign of piety, show of devotion, etc.; an instance of penitential or devotional weeping, an outpouring of penitential tears; also, a fit of uncontrollable or hysterical sobbing occasioned by religious feeling; (d) the ability to cry easily or at will; (e) the product of weeping, tears; (f) in conventional descriptions of hell as a place of weeping: the lond of ~ and drerinesse; (g) in conventional phrases expressing contrast with joie, laughinge, laughter, welthe; (h) in adv. phrases: with ~ (sore, tearfully.

Pathol. Watering (of an eye, the eyes), involuntary tearing.

The act of weeping in supplication; also, a tearful entreaty.

(a) Lamentation, mourning, sorrow [some quots. difficult to distinguish from sense 1.(a)]; ~ dale, valeie of ~, fig. a vale of tears, earthly life as a place or period of sorrow and tribulation [the comb. ~ dale could also be construed as wepen v. 3.(a)]; (b) reason or cause for weeping, suffering, wretchedness; also, a torment, a pain; (c) tales of ~, tragic stories, sad tales.

Fig. ?Violent heaving of waves, furious tossing of spray.

The word ‘wepinge’.

Transl. of F plorer used erroneously for ploiier.