croon

English

Etymology

From Middle Dutch kronen (“to groan, lament”), from Proto-Germanic *kre-, from Proto-Indo-European *gerH- (“to cry hoarsely”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹuːn/
• Rhymes: -uːn

Verb

croon (third-person singular simple present croons, present participle crooning, simple past and past participle crooned)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To hum or sing softly or in a sentimental manner.
   • Charlotte Brontë

     hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise

2. (transitive) To soothe by singing softly.
   • Charles Dickens

     The fragment of the childish hymn with which he sung and crooned himself asleep.

3. (Scotland) To make a continuous hollow moan, as cattle do when in pain.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)

Derived terms

• crooner

Translations

To hum or sing softly or in a sentimental manner

• Bulgarian: напявам (napjavam), тананикам (bg) (tananikam)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 哼 (zh) (hēng)

• Dutch: neuriën (nl)
• Finnish: hyräillä (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: summen (de), säuseln (de)
• Russian: напева́ть (ru) (napevátʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian: pjevušiti (sh)
• Spanish: canturrear (es)

Noun

croon (plural croons)

1. A soft or sentimental hum or song.
   • 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     And really, Michael Jackson is a more fitting aspiration for the similarly sexless would-be-former teen heartthrob, who’s compared himself to the late King Of Pop (perhaps a bit prematurely) on several occasions and sings in a Jackson-like croon over a sample of “We’ve Got A Good Thing Going” on Believe’s “Die In Your Arms.”

Translations

soft or sentimental hum or song

• Dutch: smartlap (nl) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: gefühlsbetontes Lied, sentimentaler Schlager, Schnulze (de), Schmacht­fet­zen m

Anagrams

• Conor, Norco, corno, r'coon