Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
  • intransitive verb To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge; file a complaint.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Complaint; outcry.
  • To utter expressions of grief, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or dissatisfaction; lament or murmur about anything; find fault.
  • Figuratively, to make a sound resembling that of lamentation or suffering; emit a mournful sound or noise: as, the complaining wind; the sea complains dismally.
  • To utter an expression of discomfort or sorrow from some cause; speak of the suffering of anything: with of: as, to complain of headache, of poverty, or of wrong.
  • To make a formal accusation against a person, or on account of anything; make a charge: with of.
  • Synonyms To bewail, repine, grieve, mourn, grumble, croak.
  • To lament; bewail; deplore.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To lament; to bewail.
  • intransitive verb To give utterance to expression of grief, pain, censure, regret. etc.; to lament; to murmur; to find fault; -- commonly used with of. Also, to creak or squeak, as a timber or wheel.
  • intransitive verb To make a formal accusation; to make a charge.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
  • verb intransitive To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb express complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness
  • verb make a formal accusation; bring a formal charge

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English compleinen, from Old French complaindre, complaign-, from Vulgar Latin *complangere : Latin com-, intensive pref.; see com– + Latin plangere, to lament; see plāk- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English complaynen, from Old French complaindre, from Medieval Latin complangere ("to bewail, complain"), from Latin com- ("together") + plangere ("to strike, beat, as the breast in extreme grief, bewail"); see plain, plaint.

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Examples

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  • comPlAiN

    May 4, 2008