lamentation

Meanings

1. The act of lamenting.
2. A sorrowful cry; a lament.
3. Specifically, mourning.
4. lamentatio, (part of) a liturgical Bible text (from the book of Job) and its musical settings, usually in the plural; hence, any dirge
5. A group of swans.

Etymology

Recorded since 1375, from Middle English lamentacioun, from Middle French lamentation and its etymon Latin lāmentātiō (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb lāmentor, from lāmentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. By surface analysis, lament + -ation.