plaint en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Southern-England) audio
- /pleɪnt/ (UK)
Etymology
From Middle English plainte, borrowed from Anglo-Norman plainte (“lamentation”), plaint (“lament”), and Old French pleinte (“lamentation”), pleint (“lament”) (modern French plainte), from Medieval Latin plancta (“plaint”), from Latin planctus (“a beating of the breast in lamentation, beating, lamentation”), from Latin plango (“to beat one's breast, to lament”); see plain.
Meanings
-
A complaint.
she seemed to repeat, though with perceptible resignation, her plaint of a moment before. ‘Your father, darling, is a very odd person indeed.’
1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:
-
(archaic, poetic) A lament or woeful cry.
In the first paroxysm of his grief, Ingolfr exclaimed, (what sorrowing heart has not echoed his plaint?) that he could never more taste of joy.
1827, Maria Elizabeth Budden, Nina, An Icelandic Tale, page 11:His shriek was as feeble as the plaint of a grass-stalk in a storm.
1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter V, in Capricornia, page 75:I heard voices calling to me, just discernible above the engine noise; I stopped, and switched off. There were no voices, nothing, but far, far away the plaint of an unmilked cow.
1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 198:
- (archaic) A sad song.
-
(UK, archaic) An accusation.
Once the plaint had been made there was nothing that could be done to revoke it.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| plaints | Number=Plur | lexicographic |