sing

verb

1. (intransitive)To produce musical or harmonious sounds with one’s voice.

   “"I really want to sing in the school choir," said Vera.”

   “And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders, and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.”

2. (intransitive)To perform a vocal part in a musical composition, regardless of technique.
3. (transitive)To express audibly by means of a harmonious vocalization.

   “sing a lullaby”

   “In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road.”

4. (transitive)To soothe with singing.

   “to sing somebody to sleep”

5. (ambitransitive)Of birds, to vocalise:
6. (ambitransitive, literary)Of birds, to vocalise:

   “⁠I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing: And unto one her note is gay, ⁠For now her little ones have ranged; ⁠And unto one her note is changed, Because her brood is stol’n away.”

   “The evening was still very warm, and the birds in the woods were singing in praise of spring.”

7. (intransitive, slang)To confess under interrogation.
8. (intransitive)To make a small, shrill sound.

   “The air sings in passing through a crevice.”

   “a singing kettle”

   “O'er his head the flying spear / Sang innocent, and spent its force in air.”

9. (ambitransitive)To relate in verse; to celebrate in poetry; to praise.

   “Who would not ſing for Lycidas? he knew / Himſelf to ſing, and build the lofty rhyme.”

   “Again I bid the mournful Goddeſs write / The fond Purſuit of fugitive Delight: / Bid her exalt her melancholy Wing, / And rais'd from Earth, and ſav'd from Paſſion, ſing / Of human Hope by croſs Event deſtroyed, / Of uſeleſs Wealth, and Greatneſs unenjoy'd, […]”

   “If chocolate is America’s most magnificent culinary obsession — and it seems to be, what with best-selling books either admitting the chocolatoholic tendencies of the author or singing the joys of the stuff — then Valentine’s Day has got to be the chocolate lover’s holiday.”

10. (intransitive)To display fine qualities; to stand out as excellent.

    “The sauce really makes this lamb sing.”

    “[Alissa Monte said] “This result was all about demonstrating that LZ [the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment] works, and it does! As we take more data and mature our analyses, we get to make LZ sing. […]””

11. (ergative)To be capable of being sung; to produce a certain effect by being sung.

    “No song sings well unless it is open-vowelled, and has the rhythmic stress on the vowels. Tennyson's songs, for instance, are not generally adapted to music.”

12. (Australia)In traditional Aboriginal culture, to direct a supernatural influence on (a person or thing), usually malign; to curse.

    “‘He says the Walcott Inlet men have sung him, and this tribe will meet the Walcott men and fight when the big walk-about comes, after the peanut season.’”

    “‘We sung them two real good. We never give Louis Beck no place to find rest from his torment.’”

13. (archaic, slang)To yell or shout.

    “I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight.”

noun

1. The act, or event, of singing songs.

   “I sometimes have a quick sing in the shower.”

   “Then all three would go off in search of the first, give it a good talking to and maybe a bit of a sing as well.”

   “Some of the young folks asked Mrs. Long could they have a sing at her home that Sunday afternoon; she readily agreed, telling them to come early, bring their songbooks, and have a good sing.”

   “'Ah, yes, Miss Fisher, have you had a nice sing?'”

2. Any sound likened to human singing.

   “heard the unmistakable twang of bowstrings against bracers, the sing of a long-bow volley, and made for the door”

   “the sing of axe on concrete”

   “Archie and Clem know gunshots when they hear them and the sing of a bullet as it drills the windshield and exits the back glass of the truck.”

name

1. A surname from English [in turn originating as an occupation].
2. A surname from Chinese.
3. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of Singh A South Asian surname.

   “For quotations using this term, see Citations:Sing.”

4. Alternative spelling of Singh A South Asian surname.