Definition of "groan"

groan

/ɡɹəʊn/

noun
plural groans
1. A low, mournful sound uttered in pain or grief.
2. A low, guttural sound uttered in frustration, disapproval, or ecstasy.
3. (of an object) A low creaking sound from applied pressure or weight.
verb
third-person singular simple present groans, present participle groaning, simple past and past participle groaned
1. To make a groan.
  Quotations
  My Lord of Hereford here whom you call King, / Is a foule traitour to proud Herefords King, / And if you crowne him let me propheſie, / The bloud of Engliſh ſhall manure the ground, / And future ages groane for this foule act, [...]
  1595 December 9 (first known performance), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Simmes for Androw Wise, […], published 1597, [Act IV, scene i]
  Designed to accommodate 60,000 people per day in the 1960s, the main concourse, entrances and passageways around the station were by then positively groaning under the weight of more than 140,000 passengers every 24 hours.
  2020 July 29, Paul Stephen, “A new collaboration centred on New Street”, in Rail, page 54
2. (figurative) To seemingly creak under the strain of being heavily laden.
  Quotations
  That night the table in the outer dining room was just groaning with good things.
  1943, H. Lorna Bingham, The Lost Tribe, Sydney: Winn and Co., page 14, column 1
3. (obsolete) To strive after earnestly, as if with groans.
  Quotations
  Nothing but holy, pure, and clear, / Or that which groaneth to be so.
  , George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple: Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […]; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, […], 1885,

Definition of "groan"

groan

noun

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations