Meaning & use
ugly cry
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Meanings
nouncountableinformalhumorous
A bout of loud, uncontrolled crying in which the face scrunches up and looks far from pretty.
Grammar: Usually with a: she had an ugly cry.
Patterns
- have an ugly cry
- an ugly cry over something
I had a proper ugly cry at the end of that film.
She went into the bathroom for an ugly cry before the interview.
The wedding speech set off an ugly cry in the front row.
verbintransitiveinformalhumorous
To cry intensely and messily, without trying to hide it.
Grammar: Usually written ugly-cry; no object: he ugly-cried at the finale.
Patterns
- ugly-cry at something
- ugly-cry over something
I ugly-cried through the whole graduation ceremony.
He ugly-cries every time the team wins.
We all ugly-cried when the dog came home.
Word forms
| plural | ugly cries |
|---|---|
| verb: third person singular | ugly-cries |
| verb: past tense | ugly-cried |
| verb: -ing form | ugly-crying |
Common combinations
- have an ugly cry
- Sometimes you just need to have an ugly cry.
- a full-on ugly cry
- The ending triggered a full-on ugly cry.
- ugly cry face
- Her ugly cry face made everyone laugh.
- ugly-cry at
- I ugly-cried at the sad commercial.
- burst into an ugly cry
- He burst into an ugly cry when he saw the surprise.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sob
- Sob refers to the sound and breathing of crying hard, without any joke about appearance.
- bawl
- Bawl stresses loud noise and is close in feeling to ugly cry, but is not about how the face looks.
- blubber
- Blubber suggests wet, messy crying and sounds slightly mocking.
- weep
- Weep is a gentler, more formal word and lacks the comic mess of ugly cry.
Word family
Practice
Which word best matches the feeling of an ugly cry?
Choose one answer.
An ugly cry is intense, uncontrolled crying with a scrunched face, so a noisy, messy sob fits. A sniffle is far too restrained.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ugly cry”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.