Careful Words

cry (n.)

cry (v.)

Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 852.

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry

Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 53.

What then remains but that we still should cry

For being born, and, being born, to die?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The World.

So dear a life your arms enfold,

Whose crying is a cry for gold.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Daisy. Stanza 24.

Oh would I were dead now,

Or up in my bed now,

To cover my head now,

And have a good cry!

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): A Table of Errata.

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act iii. Sc. 1.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;

And, born in bed, in bed we die.

The near approach a bed may show

Of human bliss to human woe.

Isaac De Benserade (1612-1691):

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

The cry is still, "They come!" our castle's strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

  It will grieve me so to the heart, that I shall cry my eyes out.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.

But what am I?

An infant crying in the night:

An infant crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 5.

If the man who turnips cries

Cry not when his father dies,

'T is a proof that he had rather

Have a turnip than his father.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 30.

It is a far cry to Lochow.

War, war is still the cry,—"war even to the knife!"

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 86.