Mowl

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To make a weak, whining cry, the way a baby or young animal does when distressed or in pain
2. Describing the act of crying softly and plaintively, as a helpless infant or small creature might
3. Producing a faint, fretful wailing sound, particularly when a young child or animal is unhappy

Etymology: "Mowl" is a dialect spelling of a word that goes back to Old English "molde," meaning soil or loose earth. The same root gave us "mould," and the sense of crumbling, powdery earth carried over into the north of England and Scotland, where "mowl" is recorded as a term for soft, crumbly ground. The shift from "molde" to "mowl" is a regular vowel development in northern dialects, though the exact spelling history is hard to trace in detail. The word's connection to the animal "mole" is probably a separate, older root. Both words are often linked in dictionaries, but the mole animal is usually traced to Old English "molde" as well, which is why the two forms overlap so closely. Because the surviving records for dialect forms are thin, the precise path from one meaning to the other remains uncertain.