[-ING1.]
1. The action of the verb CRY in its various senses; shouting, lamentation, weeping, etc.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter iii. 4. His prayere he calles criynge.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XII. vi. (1495), 416. Cryenge of the owle by nyght.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 10180. The clamor was kene, crying of pepull.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 168 b. Thy crying foole shall not wake him out of that sleepe.
1611. Bible, 1 Sam. iv. 14. Eli heard the noise of the crying.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 24. My crying was over.
1891. F. Barrett, Sin of Olga Z., I. viii. 115. There ’s a good deal of crying! And we mope and look miserable.
2. With adverbs, as crying out, exclamation, calling out, outcry; † spec. accouchement (obs.); crying up, extolling, laudation, etc.
1483. Cath. Angl., 82. A Criynge owte, exclamacio.
1676. Allen, Address Nonconf., 158. A zealous crying up one, and crying down another.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 417. He has ordered all the English nobility and gentry to be present at her crying out.
1715. trans. C’tess D’Anois’ Wks., 479. Couriers were dispatch’d … to desire them to come to Her Majesty’s Crying-out.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1812), VI. 323 (D.). Aunt Nell … was at the crying out.
3. attrib., as crying cold, a cold that makes the eyes run.
1761. Foote, Liar, I. Wks. 1799, I. 290. All the sighing, dying, crying crotchets, that the whole race of rhymers have ever produced.
1843. Sir T. Watson, Lect. Physic (1871), II. 55. I found her suffering under what is popularly called a ‘crying cold.’
