bemoan

American  

[bih-mohn] / bɪˈmoʊn /

verb (used with object)

• bemoans,
  present (3rd person singular)
• bemoaned,
  past participle,  past
• bemoaning
  present participle

1. to express distress or grief over; lament.

   to bemoan one's fate.

2. to regard with regret or disapproval.

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bemoan British  

/ bɪˈməʊn /

verb

1. to grieve over (a loss, etc); mourn; lament (esp in the phrase bemoan one's fate )

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unbemoaned
  adjective
• bemoaningly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• bemoaning
  present
• bemoaned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• bemoan
  simple
• bemoans
  simple
• have bemoaned
  perfect
• has bemoaned
  perfect
• am bemoaning
  progressive
• are bemoaning
  progressive
• is bemoaning
  progressive
• have been bemoaning
  perfect progressive
• has been bemoaning
  perfect progressive

Past

• bemoaned
  simple
• had bemoaned
  perfect
• was bemoaning
  progressive
• were bemoaning
  progressive
• had been bemoaning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will bemoan
  simple
• will have bemoaned
  perfect
• will be bemoaning
  progressive
• will have been bemoaning
  perfect progressive

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!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bemoan bemoans bemoaned bemoaning

Consumer groups heard all of these companies bemoan how tariffs on China and other Asian countries, in particular, meant they would have no choice but to raise prices.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 22, 2026

The return of the wolf in California has been met with joy by conservationists, who delight in the improbable population rebound, and with fury by ranchers who bemoan the toll on their cattle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026

For every moment of glory, there is a hard-luck story, a nation left to bemoan their misfortune and the injustices that have led to their downfall.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 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

This sounds as though I bemoan an older time, which is the preoccupation of the old, or cultivate an opposition to change, which is the currency of the rich and stupid.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

She's having to rely on her parents to help out, but bemoans the need for them to do so.

From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026

Wall Street bemoans Mamdani’s win, Trump threatens Jay Powell again, and the Bezos-Sanchez wedding is flashy and splashy.

From Slate ● Jun. 28, 2025

Of the French text, Mothersbaugh bemoans the fact that he’s not multilingual.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2025

She bemoans that she had to pay for her interpreter to manage treatment.

From Salon ● Jan. 22, 2025

One critic wrote a great many pages in which he bemoans the dreary and sordid family-life of the man who wrote the "Ode to the West Wind."

From The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions Joints In Our Social Armour by James Runciman

Some see a dark irony: Five years ago, an exasperated President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bemoaned that a corrupt customs regime had allowed organized crime to take over land and maritime ports of entry.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026

But others in the bloc have bemoaned the lack of progress on a long-stalled five-point peace plan that has formed the basis of engagement.

From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026

For anyone who cares about video games as art and has bemoaned the ever-tightening corporate stranglehold over visual entertainment and its archives, Sony’s disc phaseout is an earth-shattering quake that’s not to be taken lightly.

From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026

Tottenham's then-head coach Thomas Frank bemoaned the automatic three-match ban, but the club decided against appealing, believing they had no chance of success.

From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026

As Calixte had bemoaned, most of the theories were martial ones, involving conquest, weapons, and defense.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

In a video, Dr. Becky marks Employee Appreciation Week by bemoaning how uncelebrated parents’ wins often are.

From Slate ● May 10, 2026

But she wishes some of those fans had been shopping at her stores on a monthly or quarterly basis in recent years rather than now bemoaning what’s been lost.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026

The 12 children, whose ages stretch from 9 to the late teens, devote themselves to making fun of the parents, bemoaning society’s demise and camping on the beach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026

"The Olympics only happen every four years and only a very few times in a career," he said, bemoaning the lack of "Olympic atmosphere" in Bormio.

From Barron's ● Feb. 5, 2026

Crying: My baby, my mother, my only, only love; groaning: My sin, my terrible God; screaming with pain, muttering with fever, bemoaning old age and poverty—how can they tend the wheels?

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

Related Words

• deplore
• lament
• mourn
• regret