Meaning

noun a cry of sorrow and grief

noun a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person

noun a mournful poem; a lament for the dead

originA back-formation from lamentation or else from Middle French lamenter and its etymon Latin lāmentor (“to wail, weep”), from lāmentum (“wailing, moaning, weeping”); with formative -mentum, from the root *la-, probably ultimately imitative. Also see latrare.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0