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weep, cry, tear
Please, which do you find better?
1.When the girls learned their idol was getting married they wept. 2.When the girls learned their idol was getting married they cried. 3. I tore the letter to minute pieces. 4. I tore the letter into small pieces. Thank you.
for the context, I'd say
2.When the girls learned their idol was getting married they cried. was more fitting. However, weep and cry do not necessarily mean the exact same thing--the girls could have wept instead of crying. This 4. I tore the letter into small pieces. is better.
The girls could have wept instead of crying?
What’s the difference, then? weep - to shed tears as an expression of grief or unhappiness cry - to utter inarticulate sounds, esp when weeping; sob to shed tears; weep
Too weep is more emotional. Children "cry" for many reason, but an adult would "weep" at a funeral or a wedding.
But by and large the two words are often, but not always, synominous.
Weep is a more old-fashioned word -- you would mostly hear about "crying' today. And I don't think of them as having any realy semantic difference, personally.
I think there is a semantic difference. You could say that someone wept at a funeral, for example, but it would be unusual to say that a baby is weeping rather than crying.
But I don't think most of us picture a different action when we hear "weeping" vs "crying". It's still all fluid leaking from the eyes with signs of respiratory distress, heaving shoulders, etc. One might sound more poetic, but that's about it. For a true semantic difference, I might think more along the lines of "sobbing" versus "tearing up".
Then, do you all agree “When the girls learned their idol was getting married they wept” sounds unnatural ?
<<3. I tore the letter to minute pieces.
4. I tore the letter into small pieces.>> Both are correct, however "minute" is a more obscure word. You'd mostly hear "small" used in this context.
"Weeping" simply means "fluid is being released/leaked/emitted"
as tears from one's eyes, or fluids from a sore, etc. No emotion has to be involved. "Crying" is an emotional response, and doesn't necessarily mean that any fluids/tears are being shed. It's just an outburst of emotion (but *can* involve tears, naturally). The use of Weeping for Crying like a baby (whining and shedding tears) is old fashioned, but Weep in other senses is not. One can Weep at grief--but ONLY if tears are dropped. Otherwise, it's sobbing. So the girls "weeping" because their idol got married is odd, but not beyond reason, if that's what you really mean (if it was solemn). But I would use "cried". |