plaint

English

Etymology

Middle English plainte, from Anglo-Norman plainte (“lamentation”), plaint (“lament”), and Old French pleinte (“lamentation”), pleint (“lament”) (modern French plainte), from Medieval Latin plancta (“plaint”), Latin planctus (“a beating of the breast in lamentation, beating, lamentation”), from Latin plangere (“to beat the breast, lament”); see plain.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /pleɪnt/
• Rhymes: -eɪnt

Noun

plaint (plural plaints)

1. (poetic or archaic) A lament or woeful cry.
   • 1827, Maria Elizabeth Budden, Nina, An Icelandic Tale, page 11:

     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.

2. A complaint.
   • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:

     she seemed to repeat, though with perceptible resignation, her plaint of a moment before. ‘Your father, darling, is a very odd person indeed.’

3. (archaic or UK law) An accusation.

   Once the plaint had been made there was nothing that could be done to revoke it.

Related terms

• complaint
• plaintiff

External links

• plaint in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• plaint in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• pliant

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French

Etymology

From Latin planctus.

Verb

plaint m (feminine plainte, masculine plural plaints, feminine plural plaintes)

1. Past participle of plaindre

Anagrams

• pilant
• pliant