Making the characteristic high-pitched sound of a goat or sheep, or speaking in a weak or whining manner.
From Old English 'blætan' meaning 'to bleat,' an imitative word. The sound itself inspired the word, which is why many languages have similar words for the same animal sound (onomatopoeia).
Bleating is a perfect example of onomatopoeia—the word literally sounds like what it describes—and languages worldwide created their own versions because the sound is so distinctive that the same idea occurred independently to speakers of completely different languages.
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