• enPR: sĭng, IPA: /sɪŋ/

sing (sings, present participle singing; past sang, past participle sung)

1. (intransitive) To produce musical or harmonious sounds with one’s voice.

   "I really want to sing in the school choir," said Vera.

2. (transitive) To express audibly by means of a harmonious vocalization.
3. (transitive) To soothe with singing.

   to sing somebody to sleep

4. (intransitive, slang) To confess under interrogation.
5. To make a small, shrill sound.

   The air sings in passing through a crevice.

   a singing kettle

   • 1715, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book XXII”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: Printed by W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott between the Temple-Gates, OCLC 670734254 ↗:

     O'er his head the flying spear / Sang innocent, and spent its force in air.

6. To relate in verse; to celebrate in poetry.

   • Bid her […] sing / Of human hope by cross event destroyed.

7. (intransitive) To display fine qualities; to stand out as excellent.

   The sauce really makes this lamb sing.

8. (ergative) To be capable of being sung; to produce a certain effect by being sung.
   • 1875, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (volume 118, page 685)

     No song sings well unless it is open-vowelled, and has the rhythmic stress on the vowels. Tennyson's songs, for instance, are not generally adapted to music.

• (confess under interrogation) See also Thesaurus:confess and Thesaurus:rat out

• song

• French: chanter
• German: singen
• Italian: cantare
• Portuguese: cantar
• Russian: петь
• Spanish: cantar

• French: se mettre à table
• Italian: cantare

sing (plural sings)

1. A gathering at which people sing songs.
   • 2002, Martha Mizell Puckett, Hoyle B. Puckett, Memories of a Georgia Teacher: Fifty Years in the Classroom, page 198:

     Some of the young folks asked Mrs. Long could they have a sing at her home that Sunday afternoon; she readily agreed, telling them to come early, bring their songbooks, and have a good sing.