Definition of "moan" []

• A low, sustained, mournful cry, usually indicative of sorrow or pain. (noun)
• A similar sound: the eerie moan of the night wind. (noun)
• Lamentation. (noun)
• To utter a moan or moans. (verb-intransitive)
• To make a sound resembling a moan: A saxophone moaned in the background. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The sugar train to Matanzas started with a trundle and a high moan from the horn, pulling away from the suburbs of Havana with stateliness rather than speed, pursued by stragglers who hopped aboard like hobos catching a freight."
• "Why she thinks that anyone cares about her weight, or why she thinks it's necessary to go to a major magazine and bitch and moan is beyond me."
• "Then come the hippos, who moan from the nearby Chari River (we didn't know they were hippos at the time)."