Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Expressing sorrow; mournful or melancholy.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 1. Lamenting; complaining; giving utterance to sorrow or grief; repining.
- Expressive of sorrow or melancholy; mournful; sad: said of things: as, a plaintive sound; a plaintive air; a plaintive song.
- Synonyms Plaintive, Querulous, woful, rueful. Plaintive and querulous agree in expressing weakness. He who is querulous is ready to find fault over trivial matters, and in a weak, captious, tired way; there is a tone recognized as querlous. Plaintive is rarely said of persons; a plaintive tone or utterance conveys a subdued regret or lamentation : as, the plaintive note of the mourning dove. See petulant.
Wiktionary
- adj. Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.
GNU Webster's 1913
WordNet 3.0
- adj. expressing sorrow
Etymologies
- From Old French plaintif ("aggrieved, lamenting"), from plainte ("lament, complaint"); see plaint. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English plaintif, from Old French, aggrieved, lamenting, from plaint, complaint; see plaint. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The boys nearest the dragonet tried to anticipate his direction, hoping to Impress him, but he lurched out of their immediate circle, staggering across the sands, his call plaintive, desperate until the next group of boys turned.”
“Akka from Kebnekaise! they cried in plaintive tones.”
“First her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains*”
“The “symphony” involved tuba, trumpet, oboe, violin, percussion and a speaker who read the Lord’s Prayer in plaintive and dramatic Russian.”
“And at once I heard something to which I had paid no attention before: that is, the plaintive whining of the telegraph wires.”
“GRACE: In a civil case the plaintive is the one accusing someone of something.”
“Here these creatures had harnessed the grinding workings of the planets themselves, all to survive, all to call a plaintive note into a still and silent sky.”
“If at times the voice of the song is plaintive, that is no more than a reflection of broken homesteads and sweltering emigrant ships.”
“But he is always cheerful, in spite of his so-called plaintive note, from which he gets one of his names, and always amiable.”
“Often do we recall his plaintive words, applied to this very community: "Let no man congratulate himself when he beholds the child of his bosom or the city of his birth increasing in magnitude and importance.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘plaintive’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Words describing singing voices
mellifluous, gravelly, rusty bathtub, velvet fog, howling, laconic, fluttering, quavery, hypnotic, stilted, lilting, sonorous and 47 more...
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Of sounds and voices
tongue, alveolar, plosive, full-voiced, sibilant, hissing, fricative, guttural, wharl, burr, velar, palatalize and 29 more...
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P
letters starting with p
predicament, presumptuous, predilection, plausible, preeminent, plaintive, paragon, partisan, pathological, paucity, pedantic, penchant and 28 more...
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The blues
lugubrious, mournful, doleful, plaintive, tremulous, plangent, dyspeptic, morose, poignant, lamenting, lamentation, sad and 8 more...
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GRE
GRE words from Princeton Review guide, ETS GRE Book from 2010 (for revised test), New Yorker/NY Times articles.
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 124 more...
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Character traits
Falstaffian, drumble, despond, grotesque, élan, anile, feal, smart aleck, phat, blowsy, haver, hoary and 18 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1856 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for plaintive.
minerva I send this by a special messenger who has business only so far as Barnet, because you shall have no need to write again; knowing how you love writing: and knowing likewise, that misfortune makes people plaintive.
Mrs. Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson Jan 4, 2008