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pleintif

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Etymology and origin of the Old French word pleintif

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1200 Moralités sur Job More words from the 12th century
Ultimate origin
Latin plangō

Forms

pleintif (feminine pleintive, pleintives)[1]

The masculine nominative and plural ends in -is, -iz or -ys (pleintis, pleintiz, plaintis).[2][1]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French pleinte (“complaint”) + -if.[4] Etymonline likewise derives it from the noun, while Wiktionary derives it from the verb pleindre “to complain, to bewail”.[5][1] Wiktionary takes pleinte from the feminine past participle of the verb, corresponding to Medieval Latin plancta, and the verb from Latin plangō;[1] the FEW files the whole family under the Latin verb.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record the TLFi gives is in the Moralités sur Job, a Walloon translation of Gregory's Moralia that the DEAF dates to the end of the 12th century: there the form plantif describes weeping, with the sense “having the sound of a lament”.[4][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective described the sound of a lament, a person who is wretched or miserable, and a person who brings a complaint at law.[3][2] The legal use became a noun, “complainant”, recorded from 1260 in a cartulary of Champagne;[4][8] the Roman de la Rose asks judges to do right aus plaintis “to the complainants”.[3]

In Middle French the word still means “lamenting, unhappy”, as in Alain Chartier's plaintif et langoureux “lamenting and languishing” of 1422, and as a noun “lamentation”.[9] Modern French plaintif kept the sense of complaint and, from the late 18th century also describes what evokes it.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – plantif in the Moralités sur Job.[4][7]
  • c. 1235 – first Anglo-Norman record.[2]
  • 1260 – the noun “complainant” in a cartulary of Champagne.[4][8]
  • 1279 – plaintif in the Somme le roi.[10]
  • 1422 – plaintif et langoureux in Alain Chartier's Quadrilogue invectif.[9]
  • before 1794 – “evoking a lament”, in André Chénier.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. plaintive, lamentable, having the sound of a complaint.[3][4][1]
  2. miserable, unhappy, wretched.[1][2]
  3. (law) bringing a complaint in court.[3][2]

Noun

  1. (law) a plaintiff, complainant.[1][2][8]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word pleintif, first cites it from about 1235, and lists spellings from plaintif and plantif to pleyntyfe and plaintiffe; in England it meant “wretched, miserable”, “lodging a legal complaint” and, as a noun, “plaintiff”.[2] The MED derives Middle English pleintif from the Anglo-French word.[11] English kept both: plaintiff, from the legal noun, first as pleintif about 1400, keeping the older -iff spelling, and plaintive, “lamenting”, from the late 14th century.[5]

Descendants

  • pleinte
  • plaindre

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy and the DMF head the word plaintif, the AND pleintif.[3][8][2][9] The spelling plentif is also a separate adjective, “abundant, fertile”, formed on plenté “plenty”.[12][13] A noun plaintif “sack”, recorded once in 1459, is another word.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. pleintif
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 7:1042
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 9:17
  7. ^ a b Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. JobGregF
  8. ^ a b c d e Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon, p. 6:189
  9. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. plaintif
  10. ^ Penn Parsed Corpus of Historical French, version 1.0, University of Pennsylvania & University of Ottawa (texts by file name), p. 1279-somme-royal-penn-p
  11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. plentif
  13. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
Cite this entry

“Pleintif.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fro/pleintif. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

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