plaintive

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: plain=tive

CIDE DICTIONARY

plaintive, a. [F. plaintif. See Plaintiff, n.].

•  Repining; complaining; lamenting.  Dryden.  [1913 Webster]
•  Expressive of sorrow or melancholy; mournful; sad.  Landor.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

plaintive, adj.
1 expressing sorrow; mournful.
2 mournful-sounding.

Derivative

plaintively adv. plaintiveness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF (-if, -ive) f. plainte (as PLAINT)

THESAURUS

plaintive

Jeremianic, aggrieved, anguished, careworn, complaining, doleful, dolorous, dumb with grief, faultfinding, fretful, grief-stricken, griefful, grieved, grievous, howling, in grief, lamentable, lamenting, lamentive, lugubrious, moanful, mournful, peevish, petulant, piteous, pitiful, plangent, plunged in grief, puling, querulous, rueful, sad, saddening, sorrowed, sorrowful, sorrowing, tearful, ululant, wailful, wailing, whimpering, whining, whiny, woeful

ROGET THESAURUS

plaintive

Lamentation

N lament, lamentation, wail, complaint, plaint, murmur, mutter, grumble, groan, moan, whine, whimper, sob, sigh, suspiration, heaving, deep sigh, cry, scream, howl, outcry, wail of woe, ululation, frown, scowl, tear, weeping, flood of tears, fit of crying, lacrimation, lachrymation, melting mood, weeping and gnashing of teeth, plaintiveness, languishment, condolence, mourning, weeds, willow, cypress, crape, deep mourning, sackcloth and ashes, lachrymatory, knell, deep death song, dirge, coronach, nenia, requiem, elegy, epicedium, threne, monody, threnody, jeremiad, jeremiade, ullalulla, mourner, grumbler, Noobe, Heraclitus, lamenting, in mourning, in sackcloth and ashes, sorrowing, sorrowful, mournful, tearful, lachrymose, plaintive, plaintful, querulous, querimonious, in the melting mood, threnetic, in tears, with tears in one's eyes, with moistened eyes, with watery eyes, bathed in tears, dissolved in tears, like Niobe all tears, elegiac, epicedial, de profundis, les larmes aux yeux, Int, heigh-ho!, alas!, alack!, O dear!, ah me!, woe is me!, lackadaisy!, well a day!, lack a day!, alack a day!, wellaway!, alas the day!, O tempora O mores!, what a pity!, miserabile dictu!, O lud lud!, too true!, tears standing in the eyes, tears starting from the eyes, eyes suffused, eyes swimming, eyes brimming, eyes overflowing with tears, if you have tears prepare to shed them now, interdum lacrymae pondera vocis habent, strangled his language in his tears, tears such as angels weep.