sing

To sing is to make music with your voice. People do it everywhere: on stage, in church, at school, in the car, or quietly to themselves at home. You can sing a whole song, a few lines, or just a tune with no words at all. Birds also sing, and sometimes we say that the wind, a kettle, or a machine "sings" when it makes a clear, musical sound. In everyday English, the word can also be used in a looser way for speech that has melody and rhythm instead of plain talking.

To sing means to produce musical sounds with the voice, usually by changing pitch and rhythm to create a melody. It is one of the oldest and most common forms of human expression, used for art, worship, celebration, storytelling, and comfort. A person may sing alone or with others, loudly or softly, with words or without them. The idea includes many related forms, such as chanting, humming, and singing in a trained or untrained voice.

The word is also used beyond human music. Birds sing, and people may describe whales or insects as singing when their sounds seem musical. We also use it for things that are not alive: a kettle may sing on the stove, wires may sing in the wind, and a machine may sing when it gives off a high, clear tone. In this wider sense, the word suggests something more musical or expressive than an ordinary noise.

Figuratively, to sing can also mean to reveal information or confess, especially in informal speech. In crime stories, for example, a person who starts telling the police everything may be said to "sing" or to "sing like a canary." The verb is irregular: the usual past tense is "sang," and the past participle is "sung." Whether it refers to performing a song, making a soft melody, or giving something a musical voice, the word usually carries a sense of sound shaped with feeling or pattern.