Word.ws English Dictionary

plaint

/pleɪnt/

plaint noun: a complaint.

Noun

plaint (plural plaints)

  1. 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
  2. (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
  3. (archaic) A sad song.
  4. (UK, archaic) An accusation.
    • Once the plaint had been made there was nothing that could be done to revoke it.

plaint meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Kannada and Odia

plaint in Tamil

பிராது, முறையீடு, வழக்குரை

plaint in Urdu

گریہ, شکایت

plaint in Kannada

ಆಪಾದನೆ ಅರ್ಜಿ, ಅಹವಾಲು, ಫಿರ್ಯಾದು, ದಾವಾ ಅರ್ಜಿ, ಗೋಳು, ಗೋಳಾಟ

plaint in Odia

plaint
ପାଦ pāda
More languagesFewer languages
plaint in Sanskrit
प्रतिज्ञा pratijñā

Forms of plaint

pluralplaints

Origin of plaint

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.

Words formed from plaint

Words that rhyme with plaint

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about plaint

What does plaint mean?
Plaint means a complaint.
What is plaint in Tamil?
Plaint in Tamil is பிராது, முறையீடு, வழக்குரை. See Plaint meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is plaint?
Plaint is a noun.
How do you pronounce plaint?
Plaint is pronounced /pleɪnt/ (UK).
What is the plural of plaint?
The plural of plaint is plaints.

Words near plaint in the dictionary

  1. plainspoken
  2. plainspokenly
  3. plainspokenness
  4. plainswoman
  5. plainswomen
  6. plaint
  7. plaintext
  8. plaintexts
  9. plaintful
  10. plaintiff
  11. plaintiff in error

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plaint (page history and authors); plaint (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plaint (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plaint (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ପାଦ (Odia) (page history and authors); प्रतिज्ञा (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-plaint.wav.

Cite this entry: “plaint.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plaint. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.