1588: bawl and bark Apr 20, 2019

Words like 'wail', 'woe' and 'bawl' all have their roots as onomatopoeias, they do not imitate the same thing. 'Wail' comes from 'woe', and they both were originally imitation of people crying. 'Bawl' however was originally a description for the sound of dogs. It was only when the word was used, somewhat demeaningly, to relate the crying of people to dogs that the word now is predominantly used in relation to people. Indeed, this is similar to the word 'bark', which was today mostly denotes that of a dog, but originally meant any kind of explosive sound, even from people, and has its roots in onomatopoeia.