Where does “plaintive” come from?
Plaintive comes from Middle English pleintif, from French plaintif meaning complaining, ultimately from Latin plangere meaning to strike or lament, traced to Proto-Indo-European plak-.
plaintive (English): Sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic
Definitions
- Sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic
Ancestry of “plaintive”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | pleintif | — |
| 2 | Old French | pleintif | miserable, unhappy; complaining; plaintive; a... |
| 3 | Old French | pleindre | Alternative form of plaindre; to complain, to... |
| 4 | Latin | planctus | struck, beaten; bewailed, lamented, mourned;... |
| 5 | Latin | -tus | Forms the past participle of verbs; Forms... |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -tus | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -tus | Derives action nouns from verb roots |