Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The cry of a new-born child.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The crying of a newborn baby

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vāgītus ("crying, wailing"), from vāgiō ("cry, wail").

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Examples

  • Ita attenuatus fuit jejunio et vigiliis, in tantum exeso corpora ut ossibus vix haerebat, undo nocte infantum vagitus, balatus pecorum, mugitus boum, voces et ludibria daemonum,

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • The labor is difficult and long, and it may get worse before the vagitus is heard, but don't despair over the Middle East: something great, something wondrous, something completely unimaginable is there aborning.

    Skinny Legs and All Robbins, Tom 1990

  • "Continuo audita voces, vagitus et ingens, Infantumque animaflentes in limine primo."

    The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life William Rounseville Alger 1863

  • Possibly his first little wolfish howl (for it would be monstrous to think that he or even Remus condescended to a _vagitus_ or cry such as a young tailor or rat-catcher might emit) may have symphonized with the ear-shattering trumpet that proclaimed the inauguration of the first

    The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • JUVENALtS Sldera te excipiant modo prlmos incipientcm 19 f Edere vagitus; & adhuc a matre rubentem.

    A. Persii Flacci et Dec. Jun. Juvenalis satirae: Ad optimas editiones ... Persius, Juvenal , Sulpicia, C . Lucilius, Gaius Lucilius, Johann August Ernesti, Societas Bipontina, Johann Albert Fabricius 1785

  • "Avido patri subtrahitur infans ne voretur, et Corybantum cymbalis, ne pater audiat, vagitus initus eliditur" (read _audiat vagitus, tinnitus illi editur_, from the _vestigia_ of Cod.

    The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. 480? BC-406 BC Euripides

  • Ammian.xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.] [Footnote 14: Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.

    History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2 Edward Gibbon 1765

  • Ammian.xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.] 14 Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206

Comments

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  • The cry of a newborn.

    December 17, 2007

  • 46

    January 15, 2009

  • (noun) - The distressing cry of persons under surgical operations. --Robert Hooper's Compendious Medical Dictionary, 1798

    April 22, 2018

  • So many the threats that affright us,

    What new ones will rise up to smite us?

    With each plague forgotten

    A new one’s begotten.

    Oh, hark to its horrid vagitus!

    April 2, 2019