Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Sob

Sob (sŏb), v. t. [See Sop.] To soak. [Obs.] Mortimer.

Sob, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Sobbed; p. pr. & vb. n. Sobbing.] [OE. sobben; akin to AS. seófian, siófian, to complain, bewail, seófung, siófung, sobbing, lamentation; cf. OHG. sūftön, sūftōn, to sigh, MHG. siuften, siufzen, G. seufzen, MHG. sūft a sigh, properly, a drawing in of breath, from sūfen to drink, OHG. sūfan. Cf. Sup.] To sigh with a sudden heaving of the breast, or with a kind of convulsive motion; to sigh with tears, and with a convulsive drawing in of the breath.

Sobbing is the same thing [as sighing], stronger. Bacon.

She sighed, she sobbed, and, furious with despair. She rent her garments, and she tore her hair. Dryden.

Sob, n. 1. The act of sobbing; a convulsive sigh, or inspiration of the breath, as in sorrow.

Break, heart, or choke with sobs my hated breath. Dryden.

2. Any sorrowful cry or sound.

The tremulous sob of the complaining owl. Wordsworth.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.