Word.ws English Dictionary

plaintive

/ˈpleɪntɪv/

plaintive adjective: sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.

Adjective

plaintive (comparative more plaintive, superlative most plaintive)

  1. Sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.
    • a typically plaintive song from Radiohead
    • I can see by your plaintive smile something is wrong, so spill it.

plaintive meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

plaintive in Bengali

শোকাবহ

plaintive in Malayalam

സങ്കടകരമായ, വ്യസനകരമായ, മുറയിടുന്ന, ശോകാത്മകമായ, ദീനമായ

plaintive in Kannada

ಅಳಲಿನ, ಗೋಳು ಕರೆಯ, ಗೋಳಾಟದ, ಗೋಳಾಡುವ, ಮರುಕದ, ಶೋಕಪೂರಿತ

Examples of plaintive in a sentence

  • The koha is an early bird, and its call is strident, plaintive, and easy to imitate.
  • A tentative violoncello is playing, invisible and plaintive, then stops with an asthmatic scrape of catgut.
  • One instrument is plaintive, grievesome, high pitched: a little boy's whine.

All 12 example sentences with plaintive

Synonyms of plaintive

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of plaintive

Forms of plaintive

comparativemore plaintive
superlativemost plaintive

Origin of plaintive

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

Words formed from plaintive

Questions about plaintive

What does plaintive mean?
Plaintive means sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.
What is plaintive in Bengali?
Plaintive in Bengali is শোকাবহ. See Plaintive meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is plaintive?
Plaintive is an adjective.
How do you pronounce plaintive?
Plaintive is pronounced /ˈpleɪntɪv/.

Words near plaintive in the dictionary

  1. plaintiff's attorneys
  2. plaintiffs
  3. plaintiffs in error
  4. plaintiffship
  5. plaintiffships
  6. plaintive
  7. plaintively
  8. plaintiveness
  9. plaintless
  10. plaints
  11. Plainview

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plaintive (page history and authors); plaintive (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plaintive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plaintive (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

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

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