'Cry' originally meant 'to shout,' not 'to weep' — the tearful sense only arrived in the 1500s.
To shed tears; to call out loudly; a loud call or shout.
From Middle English 'crien,' from Old French 'crier' (to cry out, to shout, to proclaim publicly), from Vulgar Latin *critāre, probably derived from Latin 'quirītāre' (to wail, to shriek, to invoke the aid of the Quirites — the full Roman citizens by their civic name). The Quirites were Romans in their civilian capacity; to 'quirītāre' was to call out for their protection, as a citizen being unlawfully attacked might do. This origin connects 'cry' to 'Quirīnus,' the deified Romulus, and to the earliest civic
The English word 'cry' originally meant 'to shout,' not 'to weep' — it comes from a Latin word for calling on fellow Roman citizens for help. The weeping sense only developed in the sixteenth century. The older English word for weeping was 'weep,' which has been progressively displaced by 'cry' in everyday speech, though 'weep'