bemoan
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to express distress or grief over; lament.
to bemoan one's fate.
-
to regard with regret or disapproval.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bemoan
before 1000; be- + moan; replacing bemene, Middle English bimenen, Old English bimǣnan ( bi- be- + mǣnan to moan)
Explanation
Some people love to complain, don't they? Complainers also tend to bemoan things, which can be translated to "Oh no! Why me?" A more casual expression for bemoan is to moan and groan. If you step in a puddle and get your shoes wet, you might moan and groan about, or bemoan, your bad luck to whoever will listen. Just about any bad or annoying thing can be bemoaned. In fact, people love to bemoan how much other people are moaning and groaning about things!
Vocabulary lists containing bemoan
100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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This Week in Words: October 1 - 6, 2017
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We have heard City boss Pep Guardiola and Manchester United manager Michael Carrick bemoan their luck with referees this season.
From BBC • Apr. 15, 2026
Arsenal, for instance, used to bemoan its trips to Stoke City, a scrappy, physical team that made set pieces its bread and butter, because it had no hope of winning otherwise.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 26, 2025
And in several anonymized survey responses shared exclusively with Salon, parents didn’t bemoan their offspring as being anything close to lazy or entitled.
From Salon • Apr. 9, 2025
At some point in your time living in L.A. you’ve probably heard someone bemoan it as a city built for cars.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 6, 2024
You won’t have anything else here.” and having delivered her defiance all on one breath, Meg cast away her pinafore and precipitately left the field to bemoan herself in her own room.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
