cryfest

English

Etymology

From cry +‎ -fest.

Noun

cryfest (plural cryfests)

(informal) Something sad or moving, especially a film.
- 1999, Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 130:
  The Sin of Madelon Claudet was another hugely successful exemplar of the crime-and-punishment cryfests that shopgirls and housewives took to heart.
- 2002 May 26, Dave Gathman, “Movie Review”, in The Beacon News, Aurora, Illinois:
  But if heartfelt, sensitive, talky, emotional cryfests have become scarce at the multiplex, we also have seen the rise of the He-Woman, the battling babe who can tote that gun and sling that punch and close that business deal.
- 2002, Tom Mallon, Rabbit Songs review, CMJ New Music Monthly, July 2002, page 42:
  Main songwriter and pianist Dan Messe makes each song a regret-soaked cryfest, […]
(informal) An episode of intense crying.
- 1997, Anne Voelckers Palumbo, The Stay-At-Home Mom's Survival Guide, White-Boucke Publishing, →ISBN, page 7:
  Knowing that I had but seconds left before my kid exploded into a full-blown cryfest and knowing that I absolutely had to have an article of clothing that could camouflage baby barf, I raced to the register with my sapling tucked under my arm.
- 2010, Gregg Olsen, A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 234:
  Tears were a part of who he was. But this wasn't the usual cryfest. It was a deluge.
- 2011, Jennifer Ziegler, Sass & Serendipity, Ember, →ISBN, pages 65–66:
  Her eyes were raw and crusted from her big cryfest the day before, which had lasted late into the evening.

Synonyms

(something sad or moving): sobfest, tearjerker
(intense crying episode): sobfest