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''plaintive'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''plaintive'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260220114507-00-⌔

plaintive - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

plaintive (comparative more plaintive, superlative most plaintive)

  • Sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.
    • ✤ Synonyms: miserable, unhappy; see also Thesaurus: cheerless, Thesaurus: sad
    • ✤ a typically plaintive song from Radiohead
    • ✤ I can see by your plaintive smile something is wrong, so spill it.
    • ✤ When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.1

Etymology

From Middle English pleintif, plentyff, from Old French pleintif (“aggrieved, lamenting”) (whence modern French plaintif), from plainte (“lament, complaint”); see plaint. Doublet of plaintiff.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈpleɪntɪv/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 2026 January 16, Danny Heitman, “An empty nester’s ode to the cycles of laundry – and life”, in The Christian Science Monitor: ↩

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