Definition
To cry insincerely or in an exaggerated manner.
Origins
From the extravagant displays of emotion associated with professional mourners at traditional Irish funerals.
In Context
- "I have here omitted the pathetic description of Billy Flannagan, touching the doleful parting of Cathleen with her people, "who wept Irish," hullaghlued, ahahoned, with all the moving circumstances of her farewell, and the seeing her home."
- "All this while, above in chambers looking out, we saw the long-bearded ministers of Geneva who laughed at us; but if we might have had our wills we would have made them to have wept Irish."
- "She never confesed to me this seed of my disorder, but "wept Irish" to others, how I had shed tears at birth before my first sound."
See Also
- crocodile tear
- melodramatic