Other forms: mewling
To mewl is to cry feebly, as a baby or a kitten does. Mewl and puke, a mewling infant, mewl in the dark.
It is faintly contemptuous when used of adults, and Shakespeare's mewling and puking in the nurse's arms is where most people meet it. The sound it names is thin and weak rather than loud, which is the whole difference from a wail.
1verbmewlTo cry feebly, as a baby or a kitten does.
“The hungry kitten began to mewl outside the kitchen door.”
mewl is a crying.
Imitative of the sound, recorded from the sixteenth century, probably from an older word meaning to whimper.
Middle English
mewen — to whimper
English, today
mewl
From 1599 or earlier (1530 in a Scottish document), apparently from Shakespeare with this spelling. Perhaps from Middle English mewen (“to whimper”) -le.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire