groan
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A low, mournful sound uttered in pain or grief.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
grohnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɹoʊn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A low, mournful sound uttered in pain or grief.
A low, guttural sound uttered in frustration, disapproval, or ecstasy.
of an object
A low creaking sound from applied pressure or weight.
verb
figurative
To seemingly creak under the strain of being heavily laden.
To make a groan.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A low, mournful sound uttered in pain or grief.
Used this way, groan is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It lands hard, so it overstates anything mild. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Very strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Strongly negative / painful
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use groan
- “The students groaned when the professor got out the exam booklets.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: low or mournful sound uttered in pain
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.