plaint

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pleinte, also plainte,^[2][3] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman pleinte, also plainte, with Old French plainte, the noun use of the feminine past participle of plaindre (“to lament”), and partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman plaint, also pleint, with plaint (“lament”).^[4][5][6][7] This last form comes from Latin plānctus (“lamentation, beating of the breast”),^[4][3][8] from plangō (“to strike the breast, lament”),^[3][8][9] from Proto-Indo-European *plak- (“to strike”).^[3][8] Most dictionaries name only one of the French forms: Etymonline and the AHD plainte,^[3][8] Barnhart and Klein plaint.^[2][10] Latin plāga (“blow”) and the Germanic verbs Old English flōcan (“to applaud”), Dutch vloeken (“to curse”) and Old High German fluohhan (“to curse”) are cognates.^[9][2] The word's Romance relatives include Spanish llanto, Portuguese pranto and Italian pianto.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Audible expression of sorrow, a lament: the first record is in the Ancrene Riwle of about 1225.^[4] Barnhart dates the same text to probably before 1200,^[2] and Etymonline dates pleinte to about 1200.^[3] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1121–25.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English with its range already formed: in French it had meant mourning since the 12th century, an expression of dissatisfaction since about 1150, and a grievance put before a court since 1160–74.^[4] Etymonline connects the Latin senses through the beating of one's breast in grief.^[3] In English the sense of a complaint is recorded from before 1275, and the legal sense from about 1300, in Havelok,^[4] though Etymonline dates both to the late 14th century.^[3] After the 17th century the lament sense was chiefly poetic,^[4] and the Oxford dictionaries now call it literary,^[7][5] while the legal sense survives in British use, especially, Merriam-Webster notes, in county-court practice.^[7][9] A verb formed from the noun appeared before 1325;^[4] the Shorter Oxford calls it long obsolete except in Scots,^[5] and the English Dialect Dictionary has both the verb and the noun from Scotland, the noun also from Yorkshire, with the sense of a pitiful tale.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – audible expression of sorrow, a lament, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[4][2]
• before 1275 – a statement of wrong or injury suffered, a complaint.^[4]
• c. 1300 – law: a statement of grievance submitted to a court, in Havelok.^[4] Barnhart dates it to probably before 1300.^[2]
• before 1325 – verb, to make a complaint, to ask redress for a wrong.^[4]
• before 1382 – a cause for complaint, blame (obsolete after 1499).^[4]
• before 1425 – verb, transitive, to utter sorrowfully, in Chaucer's Troilus (obsolete after 1584).^[4]
• c. 1540 – verb, intransitive, to express grief, to lament.^[4]
• 1730 – a sound like a wail or moan, in Thomson's Autumn.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An audible expression of grief or sorrow, also in verse or song; a lament (chiefly literary).^[8][9][4][7]
2. A mournful sound like a human wail or moan.^[4][9]
3. A protest or complaint (archaic in Collins and the Shorter Oxford).^{[8][9][14][5]}
4. (law, chiefly British) A statement of grievance made to a court to obtain redress; an accusation or charge.^{[4][14][7][9]}
5. (obsolete, 1382–1499) A cause or matter of complaint.^[4][5]

Verb

1. (rare, chiefly Scots) To make a complaint.^[4][5][13]
2. (rare) To express grief; to lament or wail.^[4][5]

Related words

• complaint
• plaintiff
• plaintive
• plain
• plangent
• plague
• planctus

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins