make moan

make moan (third-person singular simple present makes moan, present participle making moan, simple past and past participle made moan)

1. (now chiefly Scotland) To lament, complain.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     when, too late awaking, well they kent / That their fayre guest was gone, they both begonne / To make exceeding mone, as they had been undonne.

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     These yellow cowslip cheeks / Are gone, are gone. Lovers, make moan.

   • 1872, Christina Rossetti, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’:

     In the bleak mid-winter / Frosty wind made moan, / Earth stood hard as iron, / Water like a stone […]