Can tigers cry?

Yes, tigers can cry because the verb "to cry" refers to crying for emotional reasons AND it also refers to crying for physical reasons such as washing an unwanted substance from the cornea of the eye or eyes. There must be instances in the life of a tiger when their eyes tear up to wash away an irritant. And those tears drain into a tear duct which in turn drains into their nose. They would not have a tear duct if they could not produce tears and if they can produce tears they can cry.

Can tigers cry? Yes. Photo: Pixabay.

People normally associate crying with an emotional response to something causing grief or sadness. Even elation. But the dictionary definition of crying is wider than that. The verb is applicable even without emotion. I think it's pretty clear that cats don't cry because of emotions but there is an ongoing debate about the types of emotions that cats can experience.

There is a discussion on whether cats can experience higher emotions. We know that they experience sadness and contentment and so on, the basic emotions, but it is doubtful whether they experience grief. People will disagree with that. 

However, I digress because although it would be nice to know that tigers feel grief and therefore cry because of it in answering this question, I don't have to. I just have to prove that tigers produce tears and those tears drain into a tear duct.

I've done that but please check the anatomy of tigers if you disagree with me. And you can look up the dictionary definition of crying quite easily on the Internet. You will find that although it typically applies to an emotional response it doesn't always.