groan
v.to make a long, deep sound because you are in pain, unhappy, or annoyed. You might do this when you hear a bad joke or have to do a difficult task.
v.to utter a deep, inarticulate sound expressive of pain, grief, or disapproval. Often used to describe a physical reaction to discomfort or a metaphorical reaction to an unwelcome situation.
“He let out a loud groan when the alarm went off.”
“The audience began to groan as the comedian told another terrible pun.”
“The old wooden floorboards would groan under the weight of anyone walking through the hallway at night, echoing through the silent house.”
Intransitive; often followed by 'at' or 'with' to indicate the cause of the sound.
When used as a verb, groan is intransitive and does not take a direct object like 'sound'; use it as a noun with 'let out' or 'give' instead.
From Middle English gronen, granen, from Old English grānian (“to groan; lament; murmur”), from Proto-West Germanic grainōn, from Proto-Germanic grainōną (“to howl; weep”), from Proto-Germanic *grīnaną (“to whine; howl; whimper”). Cognate with Scots grain (“to cry, scream”), Dutch grijnen, grienen (“to cry; sob; blubber”), German Low German grienen (“to whimper; mewl”), German greinen (“to whine; whimper”), Swedish grina (“to howl; weep; laugh”). The noun is from Middle English gron, grone, from the verb.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.