Word.ws English Dictionary

plight

/plaɪt/

plight noun: a dire or unfortunate situation.

Noun (1)

plight (plural plights)

  1. A dire or unfortunate situation.
    • Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 243c
    • Gosling's plight worsened when he was soon shown a red card for a foul on Martin.2011 December 10, Arindam Rej, “Norwich 4-2 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2012
  2. (archaic) A (neutral) condition or state.
    • although hee live in as good plight and health as may be, yet he chafeth, he scoldeth, he brawleth, he fighteth, he sweareth, and biteth, as the most boistrous and tempestuous master of France[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
  3. (obsolete) Good health.
    • All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight, / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares[…].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Noun (2)

plight (plural plights)

  1. (dialectal) Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
  2. (dialectal) An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
  3. (dialectal) Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
  4. (dialectal) One's office; duty; charge.
  5. (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.
    • Haply, when I shall wed,
      That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
      Half my love with him, half my care and dutyc. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Verb (1)

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To nominate an object of value as a security against a promise; to pledge something, as one's faith, trust, allegiance, or something symbolic of this.
    • "Travel shall I and woo;
      Plight me shall I a flower;
      Try shall I my sword so good,
      To my weal or my woe in the stour."1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 170
  2. (transitive) Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
  3. (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
    • I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 226

Verb (2)

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

  1. (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.
    • ſhe wore a plighted Garmend of divers colours,1670, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in The History of Britain, that Part Especially now Call’d England. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for James Allestry, […] , →OCLC, page 67

Noun (3)

plight (plural plights)

  1. (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.
    • Many a folded plight.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 26

plight meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

plight in Hindi

plight
गति gati
plight, misery
दिहाड़ा dihāṛā

plight in Tamil

நிலைமை, வருந்தத்தக்க நிலைமை, அவலம், அவல நிலை

plight in Marathi

plight, predicament
परवड parvaḍ
plight
दशा daśā

plight in Urdu

گت, حالت, مصیبت, نوبت, پرت, قسم
More languagesFewer languages
plight in Bengali
দুর্দশা, শোচনীয় অবস্থা
plight in Telugu
దుస్థితి, దురవస్థ
plight in Malayalam
ദുരവസ്ഥ duravastha
plight in Kannada
ಗತಿ gati
plight in Punjabi
ਦੁਰਦਸ਼ਾ
plight in Gujarati
દુર્દશા

Examples of plight in a sentence

  • I feel for you and your plight.
  • I doubt that Mrs Miggins on the number 32 bus cares much about the plight of the yellow woodlouse.
  • In two weeks, you have given me an ability to bring order and meaning to my plight.

All 27 example sentences with plight

Forms of plight

Noun
pluralplights
Verb
third-person singular presentplights
present participleplighting
past participleplighted
pastplighted

Plural of plight: plights

Origin of plight

From Middle English plit (“fold, wrinkle, bad situation”), conflation of Middle English pliht, plight (“risky promise, peril”) (from Old English pliht "danger, risk"; see Etymology 2) and Anglo-Norman plit, plyte (“fold, condition”), from Old French pleit (“condition, manner of folding”) (from Vulgar Latin *plictum, from Latin plicitum (“fold”)).

From Middle English plight (“risk, danger”), from Old English pliht (“peril, risk, danger, damage, plight”), from Proto-West Germanic *plihti (“care, responsibility, duty”). A suffixed form of the root represented by Old English pleoh (“risk, danger, hurt, peril"; also "responsibility”) and plēon (“to endanger, risk”). Akin to Old English plihtan (“to endanger, compromise”). Cognate with Scots plicht (“responsibility, plight”), Dutch plicht, Low German Plicht (“duty”), German Pflicht (“duty”), Danish pligt (“duty”), Yiddish פֿליכט (flikht). More at pledge.

From Middle English plyghten, plyȝten, pleyȝten, pleiten, pliten, from the noun (see below).

Words formed from plight

Words that rhyme with plight

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about plight

What does plight mean?
Plight means a dire or unfortunate situation.
What is plight in Hindi?
Plight in Hindi is गति (gati), दिहाड़ा (dihāṛā). See Plight meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is plight?
Plight can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce plight?
Plight is pronounced /plaɪt/.
What is the plural of plight?
The plural of plight is plights.

Words near plight in the dictionary

  1. pliers
  2. plies
  3. pliest
  4. plieth
  5. plig
  6. plight
  7. plighted
  8. plighter
  9. plighters
  10. plightful
  11. plighting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plight (page history and authors); गति (Hindi) (page history and authors); plight (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); दशा (Marathi) (page history and authors); plight (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Plight (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plight (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ಗತಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); plight (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plight (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-plight.ogg.

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