An archaic or dialectal word meaning to bleat or cry out loudly; to shout or howl.
From Middle English blaunen or bleaunen, possibly related to bleat but also influenced by Old French blatir. The exact origin is uncertain, but it likely represents a regional variant that competed with 'bleat' in medieval English.
This word is so old and obscure that it barely survives in English except in medieval literature—it shows how many animal-sound words existed in Middle English but got replaced by simpler, more standardized terms over time.
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