Other forms: bleating, bleats
To bleat is to make the thin wavering cry of a sheep. The lambs bleat, a bleating goat, hear them bleat.
The figurative use is dismissive: to bleat about something is to complain in a way the speaker finds feeble. Ewes and lambs know each other's bleat individually and find each other by it in a crowded field.
1verbbleatTo make the thin wavering cry of a sheep.
“The lambs bleated for their mothers across the misty field.”
bleat is a crying.
Old English blaetan is imitative of the sound, with relatives across the Germanic languages.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleh₁- — to howl, cry, bleat
Proto-Germanic
*blētijaną — to bleat
Proto-West Germanic
*blātijan
Old English
blǣtan — to bleat
Middle English
bleten
English, today
bleat
From Middle English bleten, from Old English blǣtan (“to bleat”), from Proto-West Germanic blātijan, from Proto-Germanic blētijaną (“to bleat”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bʰleh₁- (“to howl, cry, bleat”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰel- (“to make a loud noise”). Cognate with Scots blete, bleit, West Frisian bâlte, blaaien, blêtsje (“to bleat”), Dutch blaten (“to bleat”), Low German bleten (“to bleat”), German blaßen, blässen (“to bleat”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA